Job Trend Report: November 2009

Posted on Nov 16th 2009, 02:23 pm, under Career Advice

This year, in September alone, around 190,000 workers lost their jobs. This was followed by a historic rise in the unemployment rate last October to 10.2 percent, the highest since April 1983. This makes it the first time in 26 years that the jobless rate went past the 10-percent mark.

However, the federal government says that the combined job losses last September and August were almost 91,000 fewer than previously estimated. In addition, short-term contractual employment has gone up, which is usually viewed as a precursor of broader hiring. Are these perhaps signs of an improving economy? It might still be too early to say.  

But even with the unemployment rate over 10 percent, the numbers of jobs lost seems to be lessening with each passing month. The federal government has also been taken several measures to address the problem. President Obama recently signed a bill that extends unemployment benefits and gives tax incentives to homebuyers.

Meanwhile, a recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics highlighted several major industry sectors that experienced a particularly high number of mass lay offs in the third quarter of 2009. 

The worst hit sectors included construction; transportation and warehousing; professional and technical services; enterprise and company management; wholesale trade; arts, entertainment, and recreation; administrative and waste services; educational services; and other services, apart from public administration.

The mass lay-offs were mainly concentrated in the Midwest and West (the list was topped by California). The reasons for these were mainly business demand factors; in particular, insufficient economic demand and completion of contracts. 

If you're a fresh college graduate still looking for employment, it's would definitely be an advantage to know which industries are employing the most workers so you can focus your efforts. The Fall Salary Survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers identified the top employers of batch 2009 graduates: accounting services; educational services; engineering services; consulting services; federal government; financial services; aerospace; retail trade; petroleum products; and hospitals.