598k Jobs Lost In January, 3.6m Lost Since January 2008 (Charts), Unemployment Up To 7.6%

The Bureau of Labor Statistics January non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 598,000 private sector jobs in January. This is the thirteenth straight month of losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 3,572,000, with 49.6% of these job losses occurring in the last three months. This is the first time since records began in 1939 that job losses were higher than 500k for three consecutive months. BLS also reported that 11.6 million people are unemployed, an increase of 4.1 million since January 2008. This is a 7.6% unemployment rate, up 2.7% from a year ago. It was only December 2008 that the—NBER officially announced recession. See charts below

Making these numbers all the more serious is the fact that there are now 7.8 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 was basically unchanged since December but up 3.1 million over the last 12 months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 7.8 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but these 7.8 million workers are just hanging on.

Markets actually rallied today’s dismal jobs data, on the hopes that it would speed up the stimulus talk in Washington. There are two concurrent bills on the table, one from the House and one from the Senate, which are expected to be reconciled next week. Provisions include raising the conforming loan limit back up to $729,750 and issuing homeowners a $15,000 tax credit, as well as a host of spending programs—which are the source of the debate and delays.

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 January jobs report.

CHART 1: MONTHLY JOB GAIN/LOSS JANUARY 2007 TO JANUARY 2009

CHART 2: JANUARY 2009 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 3.6 million since its peak, with about half of the loss coming in the past 3 months.