November 4, 2011 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Employment trends upward in October
Total nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend up in October (+80,000). Over the past 12
months, payroll employment has increased by an average of 125,000 per month. In October, private sector
employment increased by 104,000, with continued job growth in professional and business
services, leisure and hospitality, health care, and mining. Government employment continued to contract in October.
![Over-the-month change in payroll employment, by industry, October 2011](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20120925014829im_/http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2011/ted_20111104.png)
[Chart data]
Employment in professional and business services continued to trend up in October (+32,000) and has grown by 562,000 over the past 12 months. Within the industry, there have been modest job gains in recent months in temporary help services and in management and technical consulting services.
Employment in leisure and hospitality edged up over the month (+22,000). Since a recent low point in January 2010, the industry has added 344,000 jobs.
Health care employment (part of education and health services) continued to expand in October 2011 (+12,000), following a gain of 45,000 in September. Offices of physicians added 8,000 jobs in October. Over the past 12 months, health care has added 313,000 jobs.
In October, mining employment continued to increase (+6,000); oil and gas extraction accounted for half of the increase.
Manufacturing employment changed little in October 2011 (+5,000) and has remained flat for 3 months.
Within retail trade, employment increased in general merchandise stores (+10,000) and in motor vehicle and parts dealers (+6,000) in October.
Construction employment declined by 20,000 in October, largely offsetting an increase of 27,000 in September.
Government employment continued to trend down over the month (−24,000), with most of the October decline in the non-educational component of state government.
These data are from the Current Employment Statistics program. Data are seasonally adjusted and preliminary. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation — October 2011" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-11-1576.
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