Posted February 4, 2011
January employment rises
The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 9.0 percent in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Employment rose in manufacturing and in retail trade but was down in construction and in transportation and warehousing. Employment in most other major industries changed little over the month.
Manufacturing added 49,000 jobs in January. Over the month, job gains occurred in durable goods, including motor vehicles and parts (+20,000), fabricated metal products (+13,000), machinery (+10,000), and computer and electronic products (+5,000). Employment in nondurable goods manufacturing declined by 13,000 over the month.
Construction employment declined by 32,000. Within construction, there were job losses among nonresidential specialty trade contractors (-22,000) and in construction of buildings (-10,000). Employment in construction may have been impacted by severe winter weather affecting parts of the country during the survey reference period.
