Payroll employment in November 2009

Nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (‑11,000) in November 2009; in the prior 3 months, payroll job losses had averaged 135,000 a month. Since the recession began, in December 2007, payroll employment has decreased by 7.2 million.

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Construction employment declined by 27,000 over the month of November; the loss was concentrated among nonresidential specialty trade contractors (‑29,000).

Manufacturing employment fell by 41,000 in November. The average decline for the past five months (‑46,000) was much lower than the average monthly job loss for the first half of 2009 (‑171,000).

Employment in the information industry fell by 17,000 in November. About half of the job loss occurred in its telecommunications component (‑9,000).

Employment in professional and business services rose by 86,000 in November. Temporary help services accounted for the majority of the increase, adding 52,000 jobs.

Health care employment continued to rise in November (21,000), with notable gains in home health care services (7,000) and hospitals (7,000). The health care industry has added 613,000 jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

These employment data are from the Current Employment Statistics program. These data are seasonally adjusted, and data for the most recent two months are preliminary. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation – November 2009," (HTML) (PDF) news release USDL-09-1479.