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Data on display
Economy in recovery: How selected industries have fared since the Great Recession

Kathleen Green | September 2017

How are industries doing since the Great Recession ended 8 years ago? According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Current Employment Statistics program, employment is up in most industries, and earnings increased in all.      

The chart shows the percentage change in employment for selected industries from June 2009, the end of the recession, through August 2017. A bubble’s horizontal placement shows how employment in that industry changed during that period. Its vertical placement shows average weekly earnings for all workers in the industry in August 2017. (Hover over a bubble to see the industry’s percentage change in earnings.) And the size of a bubble indicates the industry’s employment in August 2017.

 

The three largest employing industries in the chart—education and health services, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality—were also among the top job gainers over the last 8 years. Collectively, these industries added 10.8 million workers between June 2009 and August 2017.

But the chart also shows that some smaller industries with slow growth or decline over the recovery period had higher weekly earnings than those of the other industries in August 2017. The two highest earning industries in the chart, mining and logging ($1,462) and information ($1,392), were also the smallest industries by employment. And despite employment loss, the information industry had a 30 percent increase in average weekly earnings over its June 2009 level ($1,069), the biggest gain of all industries shown.