April 05, 2006 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Payroll employment, 2000-2005

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to grow at a modest pace in 2005, increasing by nearly 2 million.

[Chart data—TXT]

With this growth, employment recovered to its prerecession peak by February 2005, and then entered a period of expansion.

Employment growth was widespread, with most industries adding jobs. 

Demand for housing and remodeling throughout 2005 supported ongoing hiring in construction and housing-dependent industries within financial activities and retail trade. 

Improved consumer confidence through most of the year also helped spur employment growth in retail trade, as well as in leisure and hospitality industries. 

The effects of surging energy prices proved to be twofold, with mining experiencing unusually strong job gains, but many other industries seeing dampened hiring.

Despite rising output, manufacturing was one of the three major industries not to add jobs in 2005—the other two were information and other services.

These data are from the Current Employment Statistics survey. Learn more about employment in 2005 in "Payroll employment in 2005: recovery and expansion," by Robert P. Stephens, David Langdon, and Brady M. Stephens, Monthly Labor Review, March 2006.