While we have already commented that the “awesomely bad” jobs report was just that, both qualitatively and quantitatively, one question is where the jobs weakness was most pronounced, i.e., which sectors saw the biggest drops in jobs in May. The answer: half of all job sectors posted a decline in May payrolls, a drop that was much broader than just the Verizon miss.
First, the sectors that posted growth were, the near-minimum wage education and health, which added 67,000 jobs in May, followed by Professional services adding 31K, government with 13K, and then another minimum wage boost coming from retail trade and leisure and hospitality – almost entirely due to another surge in waiters and bartenders – which added 11.4K and 11K respectively. Curiously, the BLS did not get the memo that Financial Activites are now laying off left and right and goalseeked the sector to a +8K jump.
On the downside the weakness was pervasive, and was focused on Information which lost 34K jobs, much of which was probably due to the Verizon strike, followed by that harbinger of labor demand, Temp Services which dropped by 21K, and then two very highly paid sectors in construction which lost 15K, and mining and logging which continues to bleed workers and lost 11K. Since reaching a
peak in September 2014, mining has lost 207,000 jobs, mostly due to the collapse in the US energy industry.
And here is the punchline: if it wasn’t for the 55,400 healthcare jobs added in May, the headline jobs addition of 32,000 would have been negative. Thanks Obamacare?
via http://ift.tt/1VBGjg5 Tyler Durden