The Bureau of Labor Statistics released details on the job situation in the U.S. for October. The headlines showed that the unemployment rate fell from 5.9% to 5.8%. What you did not see is what this looks like at an industry sector level. Here is a breakdown of the unemployment rate for the major industry sectors:
Mining & Logging: 4.5%
Construction: 6.4%
Manufacturing: 4.3%
Wholesale & Retail Trade: 5.1%
Tansportation & Utilities: 4.5%
Information: 4.7%
Finance: 3.6%
Professional & Business Services: 6.5%
Education & Health Services: 4.4%
Leisure & Hospitality: 8.5%
Agriculture: 7.6%
Government: 2.7%
Self-Employed: 3.8%
Some other interesting tidbits from the report:
73% of total jobs added in September came from four industry sectors:
Leisure & Hospitality: 52,000 jobs
Education & Health Services: 41,000 jobs
Professional & Business Services (includes Temporary Help): 37,000 jobs
Retail Trade: 27,100 jobs
The discouraging part of this tidbit is that three out of four of these industy sectors fall into the lower end of the pay scale:
Leisure & Hospitality: $14.06/hr
Education & Health Services: $24.81/hr
Professional & Business Services: $29.28/hr
Retail Trade: $17.09/hr
For comparison, here is the jobs growth for the three top paying industry sectors:
Utilities ($35.72/hr): 400 jobs
Information: ($34.28/hr): 4,000 jobs lost
Mining & Logging ($31.15/hr): 1,000 jobs
Steve Scranton is the Chief Investment Officer and Economist for Washington Trust Bank and is a CFA charter holder with over 30 years of investment experience with equities, tax-exempt and taxable fixed income securities. Steve actively participates on committees within the bank to help design strategies and policies related to client and bank owned investments. Steve also serves as the economist for the Bank and has been a featured speaker for both client and professional organization events throughout the Northwest.