Payroll employment in January 2010

Total nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in January (‑20,000). The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November 2009 was revised from 4,000 to 64,000, and the change for December 2009 was revised from ‑85,000 to ‑150,000.

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Construction employment declined by 75,000 in January, with nonresidential specialty trade contractors (‑48,000) accounting for the majority of the decline. Since December 2007, employment in construction has fallen by 1.9 million.

In January, transportation and warehousing employment fell by 19,000, due to a large job loss among couriers and messengers (‑23,000).

Temporary help services added 52,000 jobs in January. Since reaching a low point in September 2009, temporary help services employment has risen by 247,000.

These employment data are from the Current Employment Statistics program and are seasonally adjusted. Data for the most recent two months are preliminary. Monthly revisions result from additional sample reports and the monthly recalculation of seasonal factors. The annual benchmark process also contributed to these revisions. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation — January 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-0141.