November 06, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Large drop in payroll employment in October
Nonfarm payroll employment dropped by 415,000 in October, by far the largest of three consecutive monthly declines.
[Chart data—TXT]
The October decline in payroll employment was the biggest employment decrease since May 1980 and followed a decline of 213,000 in September. Since the recent employment peak in March, overall job losses have totaled 887,000; losses in the private sector have totaled 1.2 million. In October, employment was down in nearly every major industry.
The labor market data for the month of October are the first to reflect broadly the impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11. The labor market had been weakening before the attacks, and those events clearly exacerbated this weakness. It is not possible, however, to quantify the job-market effects of the terrorist attacks.
These data are a product of the BLS Current
Employment StatisticsProgram. The above figures are seasonally
adjusted. Find out more in "The
Employment Situation: October 2001," news release USDL 01-397.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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Read more »