PRIVATE-SECTOR JOB GROWTH…. In the last post, we talked about the new monthly jobs report, with the chart we’ve all come to know and love. But many of you have emailed to suggest it’s time for a slightly different chart — one showing just the private sector job market.
It’s a fair request. Because of the Census Bureau jobs, the total jobs chart is skewed a bit — some months, such as May 2010, look better than they should, because the monthly total is exaggerated by hundreds of thousands of Census jobs. Other months, such as June 2010, are distorted in the other direction, looking worse than they should.
Since so many have begun skipping right past the topline number to look specifically at the private sector, it stands to reason that this chart would be of greater value.
All told, the economy has added 763,000 private-sector jobs in 2010. For comparison purposes, note that the economy lost nearly 4.7 million private-sector jobs in 2009, and lost 3.8 million in 2008.
With that in mind, here it is, a different homemade chart, showing monthly job losses/gains in the private sector since the start of the Great Recession. The image makes a distinction — red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration, while blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration.
