Job Growth Still on the Up & Up

Job Growth Still on the Up and UpAccording to Jeff Testerman, vice president of sales for www.BrokerHunter.com in Atlanta, the industry has seen a welcome “upside surprise” in the May employment numbers, which indicate that about 157,000 workers were added to payrolls within the financial-services industry. The consensus of economists was for around 135,000 positions to have been created. On the downside, total job growth for the previous two months (March-April) was revised downward by a total of 10,000.

“On the positive side, the economy continues to show it can add jobs,” adds chief market strategist Michael Sheldon of Spencer Clarke the New York-based brokerage and investment banking firm. There were some negatives, namely that the economy continued to indicate the loss of manufacturing and retail jobs. Temporary employment declined for the fourth-straight month.

And if you don’t like the government’s monthly employment report, just wait a few weeks; it will likely be revised, shares BrokerHunter.com. Such is the case with the May employment report released on June 1, with the overall numbers revised downward. Still, the financial-services industry has created more than 10,000 jobs so far in 2007. These re-statements, plus a relatively strong May, brought the sector employment for 2007 to 838,100. This eclipses all but the month of May 2001 in terms of the highest level of employment ever in the history of the sector.