A Glimmer of Job-Growth Hope

By Jeff Testerman

Commentary July 15, 2010 at 08:00 PM

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Overall Employment

The private sector added just 83,000 jobs according to the June employment report, which was not enough to offset the loss of some 225,000 temporary Census workers.

In all, 125,000 workers lost jobs in June.

The total loss for this recession exceeds 7 million jobs. The anemic June report did nothing to dispell the doubts that this economy is too sluggish to produce enough jobs to overcome this deficit anytime soon.

With stimulus money running out and weak data in construction, manufacturing and retail sales; many questions remain about the future of this recovery.

Securities Industry

There was a tiny bit of good news in June for the securities industry: Employment gained by nearly 7,000 jobs and revisions to earlier months of the year added another 4,000 jobs to what was previous reported.

While job growth is welcome, this report just brings us back to even for 2010 and with a long way to go from the peak, just 2 years ago.

Job loss since June of 2008 is nearly 75,000 workers for a decline of over 8.5%.

Finance & Insurance

This battered sector saw a modest upturn for June, adding 15,200 employees; and ending a 5 month long slide.

The carnage in banks and mortgage-related employment began in December of 2006 and since that time over 523,000 workers have been eliminated in this sector.

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