20k Jobs Lost In January, 8.42m Lost Since Recession Began December 2007 (Charts), 9.7% Unemployment

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 20,000 private sector jobs in January, and December was revised from -85k to -150k. This means 24 of the last 25 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 8.42 million. In 2009, 4.8m jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 14.8 million people are unemployed. This is a 9.7% unemployment rate, up 4.8% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 8.3 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 3.6 million since January 2008, but dropped significantly this month for the fist time in nine months (it was 9.2m last month). This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 8.3 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 8.3 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. But the significant drop this month along with the drop in unemployment is encouraging.

Chart 1 below shows the jobs growth trend from January 2008 to present. Chart 2 below shows which industries jobs were lost or gained last month. Chart 3 shows how job levels have behaved in the last 10 years, with shaded areas representing recessions. Here is the full BLS jobs report.

CHART 1: MONTHLY JOB GAIN/LOSS JANUARY 2008 TO JANUARY 2010