Employment in the 12 Largest Areas

In contrast to the six industries with job losses in September 2008, four industries in the Los Angeles area experienced over-the-year job gains. The largest employment increases were in education and health services, which added 12,300 jobs, and government, which added 8,300. Local rates of job growth in both of these supersectors fell below that for the nation.

Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown registered the fastest rate of gain, up 2.2 percent, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, up 1.8 percent. The other three areas experiencing employment growth during the 12-month period were: Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (1.4 percent), Boston-Cambridge-Quincy (0.8 percent), and New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (0.2 percent). (See chart C.)

Those areas with over-the-year job losses were: San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (-0.8 percent), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (-0.9 percent), Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach (-1.3 percent), Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta (-1.4 percent), and Detroit-Warren-Livonia (-2.9 percent). Chicago-Naperville-Joliet and Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington registered no job growth.

Houston, the area with the fastest rate of job growth in the nation in September 2008, also added the largest number of jobs over the year, 55,700, followed closely by Dallas with 54,300. Washington was third, adding 40,700 to its count. The largest declines in employment occurred in Detroit (-57,800) and Los Angeles (-53,200). Two other areas, Atlanta and Miami, lost more than 30,000 jobs.

This release presents nonfarm payroll employment estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program. The CES survey is a Federal-State cooperative endeavor in which State workforce agencies prepare the data using concepts, definitions, and technical procedures prescribed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Definitions. Employment data refer to persons on establishment payrolls who receive pay for any part of the pay period which includes the 12th of the month. Persons are counted at their places of work rather than at their place of residence; those appearing on more than one payroll are counted on each payroll. Industries are classified on the basis of their principal activity in accordance with the 2002 version of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

Method of estimation. The employment data are estimated using a weighted "link relative" technique in which a ratio (link relative) of current-month employment to that of the previous month is computed from a sample of establishments reporting for both months. The estimates of employment for the current month are obtained by multiplying the estimates for the previous month by these ratios. Small-domain models are used as the official estimators for approximately 10 percent of CES published series which have insufficient sample for direct sample-based estimates.

Annual revisions. Employment estimates are adjusted annually to a complete count of jobs, called benchmarks, derived principally from tax reports which are submitted by employers who are covered under state unemployment insurance (UI) laws. The benchmark information is used to adjust the monthly estimates between the new benchmark and the preceding one and also to establish the level of employment for the new benchmark month. Thus, the benchmarking process establishes the level of employment, and the sample is used to measure the month-to-month changes in the level for the subsequent months.