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February 10, 2009 at 07:00 PM
Free fallin’ is what the U.S. labor market seems to be doing, particularly over the last five months. The headline news in January’s employment report was the sharpest drop in payrolls since 1974; over 34 years ago.
Overall
Employment contracted by nearly 600,000 in January; this report was a negative surprise with economists were expecting a number of just over a half million. Since the recession began in December of 2007, the U.S. economy has lost over 3.5 million jobs; but the worst part is that the bottom is not yet in sight.
Finance and Insurance
This broad sector fell by almost 48,000 jobs or about 0.8 percent in the month of January. Job losses during the trailing 12-months period since February of ’08 amount to nearly 3 percent of the workforce and total over 175,000.
