Industry employment

Houston’s construction industry registered its third consecutive month of over-the-year job gains, adding 7,500 from June 2011. Employment growth in specialty trade contractors (3,100) and heavy and civil engineering construction (2,900) accounted for the largest part of the industry gain. The 4.4-percent rate of growth in this local industry was well above the 0.2-percent gain nationwide.

Other local supersectors recording employment advances from June a year ago were other services (6,400), professional and business services (5,500), and financial activities (2,900). Among local supersectors registering over-the-year increases, professional and business services was the only industry to grow more slowly than its national counterpart – 1.4 versus 3.4 percent.

Government was the only industry to lose more than 1,000 jobs from June a year ago in the Houston area, down 10,600 or 2.8 percent. The decrease was heavily concentrated in local government, particularly local government educational services, which lost 6,800 jobs. Nationwide, total public sector employment fell 0.8 percent.

Employment in the 12 largest metropolitan areas

Among the 12 metropolitan areas, professional and business services registered the largest employment gains from June a year ago in 7 areas—Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Education and health services led in 3 others—Houston, Miami, and Washington.

The public sector experienced the largest loss of jobs in seven areas—Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco—from June 2011 to June 2012. Losses were highest in Los Angeles, down 11,300 over the year, followed by Houston and Philadelphia, down 10,600 and 9,900, respectively. Of the 12 areas, only Washington added more than 1,000 government jobs during this period.

Additional information

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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 between State employment security agencies and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Employment definition. Employment data refer to persons on establishment payrolls who receive pay for any part of the pay period that 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 2007 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 the approximately 39 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 that 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 surveys, administrative data, and modeling 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 also are 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 specific estimation processes used. The sums of individual items may not always equal the totals shown in the same tables because of rounding.