May 20, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Gross job gains and losses in the third quarter of 2008

Opening and expanding private sector business establishments gained 6.8 million jobs in the third quarter of 2008, a decrease of 436,000 from the previous quarter. Over the quarter, expanding establishments added 5.5 million jobs while opening establishments added 1.3 million jobs.

[Chart data—TXT]

Gross job losses totaled 7.8 million, an increase of 3,000 from the previous quarter. During the quarter, contracting establishments lost 6.4 million jobs, while closing establishments lost 1.4 million jobs.

The difference between the number of gross jobs gained and the number of gross jobs lost yielded a net change of ‑932,000 jobs in the private sector for third quarter 2008.

Gross job gains represented 6.1 percent of private sector employment, while gross job losses represented 6.9 percent of private sector employment.

These data are from the Business Employment Dynamics program. To learn more, see "Business Employment Dynamics: Third Quarter 2008" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 09-0545.