February 05, 2002 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Employment continued to decline in January

Total nonfarm payroll employment fell by 89,000 in January to 131.2 million, seasonally adjusted. Since the recession began in March 2001, payroll employment has declined by 1.4 million.

Change in payroll employment, Jan. 2001-Jan. 2002
[Chart data—TXT]

Manufacturing employment fell by 89,000 in January, compared with average losses of 137,000 a month in fourth quarter 2001. Construction employment fell by 54,000, despite relatively mild weather across most of the country. Mining lost jobs for the third consecutive month in January, primarily in metal mining.

Retail trade posted a seasonally adjusted gain of 62,000 jobs in January, following losses that totaled 241,000 in the last 5 months of 2001. Seasonal hiring for the holidays in department, apparel, and miscellaneous retail stores (such as toy stores) had been very light. As a result, there were fewer seasonal layoffs than usual in January, resulting in employment gains after seasonal adjustment.

These data are products of the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program. For more information, see The Employment Situation: January 2002, news release USDL. 02-47.

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED