September 2015: mining job market continues plummet, health care sees gains

with August’s numbers, according to a release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. September also saw 142,000 new jobs created, primarily in the health care and professional services sectors. Health care saw 34,000 new jobs in September, with 16,000 of those positions being related to hospital work and 13,000 positions related to ambulatory health services. Professional and business services saw similar job gains — 31,000 new positions — with computer systems design and legal services seeing minor leaps in job availability (7,000 jobs and 5,000 jobs, respectively). Retail trade and food services also saw gains of 24,000 and 21,000 jobs, respectively, in September. These gains are in line with industry job gains over the past year. The bulk of the retail jobs were in general merchandise stores (10,000 jobs) and vehicle dealers (5,000 jobs). Mining continued to see jobs disappear, however; 10,000 jobs were lost, primarily in mining support activities. Mining has seen 102,000 jobs lost since December 2014. Other industries, including construction, trade, manufacturing, transportation, and financial activities saw little change from August’s employment report. Despite a good quantity of new jobs in September, 142,000 is down from the monthly average for new jobs over the past nine months (average 198,000 new jobs per month). In 2014, new jobs were being created at an average rate of 260,000 per month. Approximately 7.9 million people are still unemployed in the U.S., though 1.3 million more citizens have jobs than they did at this time last year.]]>