In the previous post, we talked about the new monthly jobs report, but in keeping with tradition, here’s a slightly different chart — one showing just the private sector job market.
Overall, the U.S. economy added 80,000 jobs in October, but as has been the case for a long while, it’s the private sector that continues to fare significantly better. Last month, businesses added 104,000 jobs, and the revised totals for August and September also show stronger growth than originally estimated.
But, just as a reminder, even 104,000 private-sector jobs, though in keeping with expectations, should not be considered “strong” growth. Given the severity of the recession, there’s some satisfaction when the monthly jobs total reaches six digits, but this is still a weak recovery.
With two months remaining in 2011, the U.S. private sector has now added 1.5 million jobs this calendar year, well ahead of last year’s private-sector total of 1.2 million. Since March 2010, American businesses have created 2.74 million jobs. (In 2008, the private sector lost 3.8 million jobs, and in 2009, the private sector lost 5 million jobs.)
And with that, here’s 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.
