By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
WASHINGTON – U.S. non-farm payroll employment declined slightly in February to 145.99 million, a decline of 63,000 jobs from the revised January level, as job losses in the manufacturing, construction and retail sectors outweighed gains in health care and food services, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
The 0.04-percent decline was the largest single-month drop since March 2003, according to Bloomberg News.
The BLS said the total share of the population that had jobs was little changed last month, at 62.7 percent. But the total civilian labor force fell 450,000 or 2.9 percent to 153.37 million, perhaps reflecting discouraged workers who have stopped looking for jobs. As a result, the labor-force participation rate declined to 65.9 percent from January’s 66.1 percent and February 2007’s 66.2 percent.
The number of people working part-time for economic reasons – because their hours were cut back or they were unable to find full-time employment – rose to 4.88 million, an increase of 115,000 from January and 637,000 from February 2007, the bureau said.
The unemployment rate was “essentially unchanged” last month at 4.8 percent, down from January’s 4.9 percent, the BLS said. Analysts had expected the jobless rate would rise to 5.0 percent, based on the median forecast from a Bloomberg News survey of 76 economists. (Their projections ranged from 4.8 percent to 5.2 percent unemployment.)
The jobless rate for blacks fell to 8.3 percent in February from 9.2 percent the month before, while the rates for adult men (4.3 percent, down from January’s 4.4 percent) and women (4.2 percent, down from January’s 4.4 percent), teenagers (16.6 percent, down from 18.0 in January), whites (4.3 percent, down from January’s 4.4 percent) and Hispanics (6.2 percent, down from January’s 6.3 percent) “showed little or no change,” the bureau said.
“Manufacturing employment fell by 52,000 over the month,” BLS Commissioner Keith Hall told Congress in a statement this morning to the Joint Economic Committee. “Over the past 12 months, this industry has shed 299,000 jobs. In February, employment declined in motor vehicles, printing and semiconductors, as well as in wood products and furniture – two housing-sensitive industries. Factory hours and overtime were unchanged.
“Elsewhere in the goods-producing sector, construction lost 39,000 jobs over the month. Construction employment has fallen by 331,000 since peaking in September 2006. Over this period, job losses were concentrated in residential building and in residential specialty trades. …
“In the service-providing sector,” Hall said, “retail employment was down by 34,000 in February. Job losses occurred in department stores, auto dealers, and building and garden supply stores. Over the past 12 months, retail employment has shown no net growth.
“Within professional and business services, employment in the temporary-help industry fell by 28,000 over the month and by 117,000 since the most recent peak in December 2006.
“Health care employment continued to expand in February, rising by 36,000. Employment in food services continued to trend up, although growth in this industry has slowed in the past 4 months. Most other private service-providing industries showed little employment change in February.”
The average workweek last month for hourly workers at all non-farm private employers was 33.7 hours, the same as in January but 0.1 hour less than in December. Their average hourly earnings rose 5 cents compared with January to $17.80 per hour, while average weekly earnings rose $1.68, or 2.8 percent, last month to $599.86.
The average manufacturing workweek held steady at 41.1 hours, the same as in January and December, while manufacturing overtime was unchanged at 4.0 hours per week.
Even though unemployment last month was lower than expected, reaction to the report was still gloomy. “All the lights are flashing red,” Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Mass., told Bloomberg News. “We’re in a recession. I don’t think there is any doubt about it at this point.”
Additional information, including the full Employment Situation report and the BLS Commissioner’s Statement on the Employment Situation release, is available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov.
