Where are the Jobs?

<p>Jonathan Morgan is a School of Government faculty member.</p> <p>The latest national employment numbers for June 2010 show some modest private sector job creation despite a decline overall in total nonfarm employment.  The unemployment rate dropped a bit to 9.5 percent from 9.7 percent in May.  The U.S. economy lost 125,000 jobs in June, in large part due to a decrease in temporary workers hired by the federal government to help conduct the decennial census.  The loss of 225,000 census workers was partially offset by a gain of 83,000 jobs in the private sector.</p> <p>The monthly increase in private sector employment was driven by growth in the following industry sectors:</p> <p>Leisure and hospitality, +37,000</p> Amusements, gambling, and recreation, +28,000 <p>Professional and business services, +46,000</p> Temporary help services, +21,000 Management and technical consulting, +11,000 Business support services, +7,000 <p>Transportation and warehousing, +15,000</p> <p>Health care, +9,000</p> <p>Manufacturing, +9,000</p> Fabricated metal products, +7,000 <p>Mining, +6,000</p> <p>As I look at these numbers, I wonder if they indicate that U.S. job creation is on the rebound in a meaningful and sustainable way.  This does not appear to be a jobless recovery in the purest sense, given that thousands of jobs are being created in the private sector.  However, most economists contend that we are not yet seeing anything close to the level of job creation required to return to pre-recession employment levels.  For example, even though the U.S. economy has added nearly 600,000 jobs since the beginning of the year, total private employment was 7.9 million less in June than it was in December of 2007.</p> <p>I also wonder how the national employment trends are playing out [...]</p>