A 26-Year Peak for U.S. Unemployment

The latest Employment Situation news release for August reports that the U.S unemployment rate has reached a 26-year high with employers cutting 216,000 jobs in August. The unemployment rate registered at 9.7%, a 0.3% percentage point increase from the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In recent months, job losses have moderated in many major industry sectors, including manufacturing (-63,000) and financial activities (-28,000). Employment remained relatively unchanged in August both in transportation and warehousing, and in leisure and hospitality. Employment in health care continues to rise (+28,000) with gains predominantly in ambulatory care and in nursing and residential care. Employment in hospitals remained little changed in August; job-growth in the industry slowed in early 2009 and employment has been flat since May, reports BLS. Health care has added 544,000 jobs since the start of the recession, however. It is interesting to note, that since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed people in the U.S. has risen by 7.4 million, and the unemployment rate has actually grown by 4.8% percentage points.

Posted by RecruitingTrends.com on September 4, 2009. Filed under Hospitality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry