BOSTON AREA EMPLOYMENT: JANUARY 2009
Job Count Declined by 50,100 over the year

        Total nonfarm employment in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan area¹ stood at 2,413,700 in January 2009, down 50,100, or 2.0 percent over the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. During the same period, the national job count fell 2.6 percent. Regional Commissioner Denis M. McSweeney noted that January's decline was the fourth consecutive over-the-year decrease in local employment, following uninterrupted over-the-year growth from July 2004 to September 2008. (See chart A and table 1; Technical Note at end of release contains metropolitan area definitions. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year-analysis is used throughout.)

Chart A.  Total nonfarm employment, over-the-year percent change in the United States and the Boston metropolitan area, January 2003 - 2009

¹ Areas in the six New England states are defined as Metropolitan New England City and Town Areas (NECTAs), while areas in other states are county-based and identified as metropolitan areas and metropolitan divisions. However, for comparative purposes, the Boston NECTA and its divisions have been referred to as a metropolitan area and metropolitan divisions. See technical note for more information on the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy NECTA.

Metropolitan divisions

        The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy area is comprised of nine metropolitan divisions - separately identifiable employment centers within the larger metropolitan area. The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Metropolitan Division, the largest of the nine, lost 28,600 jobs from January 2008 to January 2009. Employment in the six other divisions for which data are published also declined over the year. The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy division accounted for 69 percent of the workforce in January 2009.

Industry employment

         In the Boston area, employment fell over the year in seven supersectors with three industries posting job losses of 10,000 or more. Professional and business services lost 17,000 jobs, more than any other industry. The 4.2-percent local decline was similar to the 4.4-percent loss nationally. (See table 1 and chart B.) Trade, transportation, and utilities employment declined by 14,400, or 3.4 percent, compared with the 3.7-percent national decrease. Construction employment (-11,500) fell sharply over the year both locally and nationally, with decreases of 12.7 and 10.7 percent, respectively.

        Financial activities employment in the Boston metropolitan area fell by 9,500 from January a year ago, a 5.1-percent decrease. Job losses in this industry extend back to September 2007, 17 consecutive periods of over-the-year decreases. Manufacturing employment also continued to slide, down 7,700, or 3.5 percent, although the local loss was slower paced than the 8.1-percent national decline. Other industries with over-the-year job losses were leisure and hospitality (-3,900) and information (-1,300).

        Two supersectors in the Boston metropolitan area added jobs from January 2008 to January 2009. Education and health services gained 11,200 jobs, a 2.4-percent increase Employment in this industry has increased annually without interruption since April 2001. Public sector employment rose by 4,900, a 1.6-percent gain. Nationally, employment in these industries grew 2.8 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively.

Twelve largest metropolitan areas

         The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy area was 1 of the nation's 12 largest metropolitan statistical areas in January 2009. Eleven of these areas experienced over-the-year job losses. (See chart C and table 3.) Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown was the only area to add jobs during this 12-month period, growing at a 0.7-percent pace. Nationally, employment declined 2.6 percent from January 2008 to January 2009.

         Of the areas with over-the-year job losses, five-Detroit-Warren-Livonia (-7.4 percent), Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta (-3.8 percent), Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach (-3.4 percent), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (-3.2 percent), and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (-2.9 percent)-experienced employment declines faster than the national rate. Job losses in Chicago-Naperville-Joliet occurred at the same rate as that for the nation. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy and New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (-2.0 percent each), Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington (-1.7 percent), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington (-0.2 percent), and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (-0.1 percent) all lost jobs at a slower pace than the nation since January 2008.

         Four metropolitan areas experienced employment declines of over 100,000 from January a year ago, led by Los Angeles (-175,600) and New York (-168,600). Another five areas had job losses of about 50,000 or more. Houston, the only area to gain jobs since last January, increased its employment by 17,200.

Additional information

More complete information on the technical procedures used to develop these estimates and additional data appear in Employment and Earnings Online.

Industry employment data for states and metropolitan areas from the CES program are also available in the above mentioned news releases and from the Internet at www.bls.gov/sae/.

For personal assistance or further information on the Current Employment Statistics program, as well as other Bureau programs, contact the New England Information Office at 617-565-2327 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.

Technical Note

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 employment security 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 place 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.

Method of estimation.  The employment data are estimated using a "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.

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. 

Reliability of the estimates. The estimates presented in this release are based on sample survey and administrative data and thus are subject to sampling and other types of errors. Sampling error is a measure of sampling variability--that is, variation that occurs by chance because a sample rather than the entire population is surveyed.  Survey data are also subject to nonsampling errors, such as those which can be introduced into the data collection and processing operations.  Estimates not directly derived from sample surveys are subject to additional errors resulting from the special estimation processes used.  The sums of individual items may not always equal the totals shown in the same tables because of rounding.

Employment estimates.  Measures of sampling error for state CES data at the supersector level are available on the BLS Web site at www.bls.gov/sae/790stderr.htm. Information on recent benchmark revisions for states is available at www.bls.gov/sae/.

Area definitions.  The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, dated November 20, 2008.  A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/omb/bulletins/fy2009/09-01.pdf.

The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H. Metropolitan New England City and Town Area (NECTA) includes nine NECTA divisions--subdivisions of the larger NECTA which function as distinct social, economic, and cultural areas within the larger region. The NECTA divisions that compose the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH NECTA include: Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA, Brockton-Bridgewater-Easton, MA, Framingham, MA, Haverhill-North Andover-Amesbury, MA-NH, Lawrence-Methuen-Salem, MA-NH, Lowell-Billerica-Chelmsford, MA-NH, Nashua, NH-MA, Peabody, MA, Taunton-Norton-Raynham, MA, and select cities and towns within.