Five Sectors with Fewer Jobs than October 2008

Yesterday was Jobs Report Day. This was a pivotal report. It was the final report released prior to Tuesday's Election. The data was skewed. They should have reported that only 25,000 private sector workers were added to the economy. They could have also reported that, when the drop in participation from October 2008, October 2000, and October 19888 are factored into the unemployment numbers,  the effective unemployment rate is actually 9.74% to 12.01%. We are missing millions of participants. The question is what sectors are still in recovery mode from the recession?

There are five sectors that have fewer jobs than were present during October 2008. Last month a similar column was written when there were six sectors with employment levels below September 2008 levels of employment. This month we are seeing incomplete recoveries in the Mining and Logging Sector, the Construction Sector, the Manufacturing Sector, the Information Sector, and even the Government Sector.

We have fewer Mining and Logging Jobs than we had during 1991 and 2008-2015. We have fewer mining and logging jobs than we had during the past two Octobers when things were looking good. The industries had recovered from the Great Recession. Think about that. The sector recovered and is now worse off than it was during 2011.  It is in worse shape than it was during October 2006.

Construction Jobs are Down - Meaning New Home Sales are Down.  This column has produced many articles on the sluggish new home construction data. You need construction labor to create new homes and you need new home sales to create a demand for construction jobs. The sector is in recovery mode. It has not recovered. It has not recovered to 2008 levels, it has not returned to October 2002 levels, and it has not returned to October 2000 levels.

Manufacturers are singing the blues. We have nearly one million fewer manufacturing jobs now than we had during October of 2008. WE have nearly two million less manufacturing jobs than we had during October 2006. We have nearly four million less manufacturing jobs than we had during October of 2001. 

The Information Sector Peaked  during 2000. There are nearly one million fewer IT workers than we had during October of 2000. There are nearly 200,000 fewer IT workers than October 2008. We had more IT workers during October 1995 than we had during October 2016.

Even Government Workers have lost jobs during this Recession. We have fewer people working in the government than we had working during October 2007, October 2008, October 2009, and October 2010.

Eight years after the start of the recession five employment sectors have fewer jobs than they had prior to the recession. Don't feel bad if you are in one of these sectors and out of work. Remember....

It's the Economy.

Time to vote for a new economy and a new direction.