During this recession, three industry sectors have accounted for nearly two-thirds of total job losses : construction, manufacturing and administrative and support services. 

The Office of Employment Statistics has produced a  highlight that looks at the occupational composition of these sectors as of May 2008, several months into the recession.

Although not all occupations in an industry may be equally affected by job losses, this analysis illustrates the types of occupations that are prevalent in each industry and therefore may be at risk during an economic downturn

Web site Link

(PDF version)

A new page added to this web site shows two new perspectives to the unemployment problem during this recession:

• The unemployment rate for males is far greater for the last few years than the rate for females — an unprecedented phenomenon in the statistics that go back to 1948.
• There has always been a large gap in the unemployment rate between those without a high school diploma and those who have a bachelors degree.
  Typically the unemployment rate of those who do not complete college is about double those with degrees — about a 6 percentage point difference. In this recession that difference has almost doubled to about 10 percentage point spread — 15.6 percent unemployment peak for the diploma-less and 5.9 rate for those with degrees.

We’ll leave it to you to explore the gaps, but the numbers tell us a lot about the value of education. Click here to go to the page Workforce Stats — unemployment, different looks