524k Jobs Lost In December, 2.6m Lost In 2008 (Charts), Most Since 1945, Unemployment Up To 7.2%
The Bureau of Labor Statistics December non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 524,000 private sector jobs in December. This is the twelfth straight month of losses, putting the total 2008 job loss toll at 2,589,000, with 75% of these job losses occurring in the last 4 months. BLS also reported that 11.1 million people are unemployed, an increase of 3.6 million since December 2007. This is a 15-year-high 7.2% unemployment rate, up 2.3% from a year ago and the biggest one-year loss since 1945. This ongoing jobs recession since December 2007 finally caused the NBER to declare an official recession in December 2008—when they announced it, they said recession began in December 2007 when this jobs drought began.
Making these numbers all the more serious is the fact that there are now 8 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 700,000 in December alone, and up 3.4 million over the last 12 months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline statistics shows that these 8 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but these 8 million workers are just hanging on.
Earlier this week we saw that retailers suffered during the holiday shopping season, and next month’s jobs report will also include retail employees laid off following the holiday shopping season. Many economists are calling for 9% unemployment and several quarters of weak GDP growth.
Chart 1 below shows the jobs growth trend since January 2007 to present. Chart 2 below shows which industries jobs were lost or gained last month. Chart 3 shows percent change in private sector jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Here is the full December jobs report.
CHART 1: MONTHLY JOB GAIN/LOSS JANUARY 2007 TO DECEMBER 2008
CHART 2: DECEMBER 2008 JOBS BY SECTOR
CHART 3: PERCENT CHANGE IN JOBS SINCE RECESSION BEGAN
Total nonfarm employment peaked in December 2007, coinciding with the start of the recession as declared by the NBER. With the recent acceleration of job losses, nonfarm employment has fallen by 1.9 percent during 2008, the largest employment percentage decline since 1982.
