Employment hit record highs in construction, professional and business services, health care, and wholesale trade.
From WOLF STREET by Wolf Richter.
Now that we’ve discussed overall employment and job creation in an economy that is thriving in an inflationary environment, let’s take a look at employment trends over the past decade by major industry, based on Friday’s employment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Industry categories are location-specific. Surveys are sent to employer facilities. The primary activity at that facility determines the industry category. For example, Amazon fulfillment center employees are classified as “Transportation and Warehousing.” It’s not the company that matters, it’s the work that’s done at that specific location.
construction Employment (of all types, from single-family homes to highway jobs) continues to break records. A shortage of skilled workers remains an issue in some sectors, and some businesses are looking to hire more if they can.
- Total employment: 8.23 million, a new record high
- 3-month growth: +58,000
Production: After a big surge from the pandemic, employment has remained flat at very high levels for over a year. Automation is mainstream: Producing more with fewer people.
- Total employment: 12.97 million
- 3-month growth: +8,000
Jobs in the world’s largest crude oil and natural gas producerAs a result of the rapid growth in oil and gas production, the United States has become the world’s largest producer of crude oil and a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products, and the world’s largest producer of natural gas and the largest exporter of LNG.
And they are doing it with advanced technology, while reducing the number of workers on drilling rigs. Technologists, engineers, traders, financial professionals, managers, etc. in the oil and gas industry are counted in other categories, such as professional, business and scientific services (see below).
Professional and business services. It is one of the largest industries by number of employees and primarily includes establishments whose employees work in professional, scientific and technical services, business management, administrative and support, and waste management and remediation services. It also includes establishments for some technology and social media companies.
The post-pandemic hiring surge has slowed, but hiring continues to set new records.
- Total employment: 22.95 million
- 3-month growth: +49,000
Healthcare and social assistance:
- Total employment: 22.41 million, a record high
- 3-month growth: +264,000
Leisure and Hospitality – Restaurants, accommodation, resorts, etc.
- Total employment: 16.9 million, back to pre-pandemic high.
- 3-month growth: +108,000
Retail It counts workers at brick-and-mortar stores like shopping malls, car dealerships, grocery stores, gas stations, and other retail outlets like markets. It doesn’t include technology jobs like e-commerce operations, drivers, or warehouse workers.
Much of the industry has been under immense pressure from e-commerce businesses, with dozens of major retailers having been liquidated in bankruptcy court and losing jobs entirely in recent years, as we’ve documented in our “The Collapse of the Brick-and-mortar Store” series.
The retailers that are doing well are those that aren’t under the full pressure of e-commerce, such as those selling groceries, car dealerships and gas stations.
- Total employment: 15.7 million
- 3 month growth: +55,000
Wholesale:
- Total employment: 6.19 million, a new record high
- 3-month growth: +14,000
Financial Activities (Finance and insurance, real estate rental, leasing, buying and selling, and management). The mortgage industry was devastated as the mortgage refinancing boom collapsed and home sales plummeted, causing employment to plateau at very high levels.
- Total employment: 9.23 million
- 3-month growth: +12,000
Transportation and warehousing: A pandemic boom in durable goods led to a surge in hiring, but as consumers switched spending to services the boom faded and hiring began to fall before starting to grow again.
- Total employment: 6.58 million
- 3 month growth: +35,000
“information” This includes establishments with people primarily working in the fields of web search portals, data processing, data transmission, information services, software publishing, motion pictures and sound recording, broadcasting, including via the Internet, and telecommunications. This also includes workplaces of technology and social media companies, where the impact of layoffs can be seen.
- Total employment: 3.01 million
- 3 month growth: -3,000
Federal, state and local government employment: 14.7% of all employees work in government at all levels.
- Federal government: 1.9% of all employees
- State government: 3.4% of total employees (including higher education).
- Local governments: 9.4% (mainly education-related, such as teachers and school administrators).
Over the past 15 years, as the economy and labor market have grown, government employment has grown as well, but at a slower pace than overall employment. As a result, the share of government workers in the total workforce has fallen, reaching a multi-decade low of 14.5% at the end of 2022. Two spikes occurred during the censuses (2010 and 2020), and the second spike was also the result of a simultaneous collapse in total employment during the pandemic.
This is the total number of private employment jobs at all levels of government, and we are now more or less back to trend B rather than trend A.
- Total employment: 23.3 million
- 3-month increase: +128,000 (federal +18,000, state and local +110,000)
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