Where is Job Growth Coming From?

Something that I've been interested in doing, but simply have not had the time to do, is break down the establishment survey data and normalize it to see where we are seeing job growth. That is the purpose of this article -- to see where jobs are coming from. I've taking the establishment data from Summary Table B of the latest BLS report, and broken the data out according to the various sub-groups (construction, retail trade etc..). I've tried to put similar job activities on the same graph (goods producing, professional services etc..) but probably came up short in my classification scheme. Finally, I normalized the data, placing everything on a scale of 100.


Goods producing industries -- natural resource and mining, construction and manufacturing jobs -- all lost jobs during the recession. However, since the end of the recession, only the natural resource and mining sector has added a significant amount of jobs.


Of the professional, financial services and information service jobs sector, only the professional services sector has seen any job growth.


Interestingly enough, retail trade has not seen a meaningful increase (despite some strong retail sales numbers), although leisure and hospitality is seeing some growth (although not at a strong pace).


Wholesale trade and transportation jobs are increasing, but at a very slow rate.


The government sector is actually cutting jobs right now.


Education and health care employment continues to increase -- and saw no decrease during the recession.