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January job numbers redux

7 February 2010 117 views No Comment

Courtesy of: Only Bangalore Jobs

The BLS released January’s jobs report this morning, and while it wasn’t complete cause for celebration, it was encouraging. The unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged, down -20,000 compared to -779,000 in January 2009.

Here are the highlights:

The number of unemployed persons decreased to 14.8 million
Employment fell in construction by -75,000, in transportation and warehousing by 19,000, and in financial activities by -16,000
Temporary help services added 52,000 jobs, retail trade employment rose by 42,000, the federal government added 33,000 jobs (including 9,000 temporary positions for Census 2010) and health care continued to trend up by adding 14,500 jobs.
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up in January, reaching 6.3 million. Since the start of the recession, the number of long-term unemployed has risen by 5.0 million
There were 1.1 million discouraged workers — not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them — up from 734,000 a year earlier.

Even though the Bureau of Labor Statistics job loss numbers could were negative for January, unemployed Americans continue to be resilient in their job searches. In fact, 58 percent of those laid off in the last twelve months have secured new positions. According to an updated survey by CareerBuilder, 51 percent of workers who were laid off from full-time jobs in the last 12 months have found new full-time positions, up from 48 percent in June 2009.

Want to know how those people found their jobs? Watch CareerBuilder’s Jason Ferrara discuss the survey on First Business.