A little while back I did a 10 year analysis on where the jobs have been coming from. Today's jobs report simply confirms these trends .. and that continues to be worrying.
BLS - break down by sector - http://www.bls.gov/...
There is a lot of hype around the jobs report each month, which is bit crazy given the size of the revisions that usually occur later. But ... since everyone pays attention, let's do something a bit different and instead of micro focusing, let's look at the situation with a bit broader perspective.
So .. to recap from my previous diary http://www.dailykos.com/... over the last 10 years the US economy has added 8,548,00 jobs in services and lost 3,224,000 jobs in good producing sectors (as of the end of April). As a result service jobs now account for 83.7% of private sector jobs (up from 79.9%) and goods producing jobs have dropped to 16.3% from 20.1%.
Of the major job categories 3 in particular have added a majority (roughly 57%) of the new service jobs, despite only making up about 25% of service jobs:
Restaurants and bars up 1.7 million or 20.3%
Health care - up 2.7 million or 23%
Temp agencies - up 500,000 up 25%
From today's report we have a total of 175,000 jobs created and the trends continue:
Restaurants and bars up 38,100
Health care up 10,700
Temp agencies up 25,600
These three categories account for 20% of all jobs, but added 42% of new jobs. This month health care was noticeably light (usually around 25,000) and retail was higher (up 27,700). On the down side manufacturing lost jobs for the second month in a row, and construction barely budged (despite the supposed recovery in the housing market) - not what you want to see in a supposedly growing economy.
Think about it. The two biggest drivers of employment over the last ten years - food service and health care - are essentially two fields that are hard to outsource. One (food service) performs a service that most people could do on their own if they had the time or inclination. As such a severe recession could decimate these businesses. The other (health care) is an industry where the US already spends double what any other nation on earth spends (as a % of GDP). One has to wonder where further growth is going to come from without consuming the entire economy. Heath care already employs more than 1/10 people in the US. Surely this can not be the future engine of growth for much longer.
In conclusion: Despite the fact that there are jobs being created, we are still not seeing the kinds of jobs on which one can build a sustainable recovery .... despite the massive monetary and fiscal stimulus being applied by the federal government and the Federal Reserve. The jobs being created tend to be low wage, low benefit positions, while jobs continue to be lost or created much more slowly in the higher wage, higher skilled areas.