The crisis is having uneven effects on jobs. The table below from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (via Michael Mandel) shows the change in employment for 2008. Massive losses are concentrated in what Mandel calls the “tangible sector” – production, construction, and farming and fishing. Health care and education have help up reasonably well, along with management. The intangible sector and creative sector jobs – arts, design, and entertainment; architecture and engineering; computer science and mathematics; and life and physical sciences – are starting to register losses. I’d love to know where in terms of geography these losses are concentrated. But the bigger point is that if this continues the U.S. economy may start to look like the meds-and-eds dependent economies of old rustbelt city-regions. That said, the job losses in the creative or intangible sector are in range of 3-5 percent, while tangible sector losses are in the double digits.
Jan08-Jan09 | ||
Percent change | Change in thousand of jobs | |
| Healthcare support | 10.4% | 318 |
| Personal care and service | 4.5% | 205 |
| Legal | 4.3% | 72 |
| Education, training, and library | 2.3% | 194 |
| Healthcare practitioner and technical | 2.2% | 166 |
| Community and social services | 1.6% | 37 |
| Management | 1.4% | 224 |
| Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance | -0.2% | -10 |
| Food preparation and serving | -0.2% | -16 |
| Business and financial operations | -0.3% | -16 |
| Installation, maintenance, and repair | -0.4% | -23 |
| Protective service | -0.5% | -15 |
| Life, physical, and social science | -1.2% | -16 |
| Transportation and material moving | -3.5% | -305 |
| Computer and mathematical | -4.5% | -163 |
| Sales and related | -4.9% | -821 |
| Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media | -5.4% | -149 |
| Architecture and engineering | -5.4% | -154 |
| Office and administrative support | -6.0% | -1173 |
| Farming, fishing, and forestry | -8.8% | -80 |
| Production | -12.9% | -1181 |
| Construction and extraction | -14.2% | -1266 |