During the first quarter of 2022, employment in the United States has been more or less steady, although there have been some notable movements in reaction to global markets.
On the first of September, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report analyzing the employment situation in the first quarter of 2022, including both March and comparatively previous months within the US labor market.
In these first data, the increase in non-agricultural employment (seasonally adjusted) by more than 430,000 new jobs stands out.
On the other hand, another relevant fact was that the employment rate in temporary employment agencies remained at an all-time high, standing at 2.09%. Finally, the overall unemployment rate stood at 3.6%.
The US employment situation in March 2022
According to the report, temporary unemployment reached 787,000 in March. The number of people declaring themselves to be long-term unemployed remained stable compared to the previous month.
Meanwhile, the number of people considered to be long-term unemployed stood at around 1.4 million. This represents an increase of just over 100,000 unemployed compared to February 2022.
A relevant fact is that all industry groups, with the exception of the transportation and warehousing sectors, remained stable in terms of employment volume.
The sector in which employment grew the most was leisure and tourism with just over 100,000 new jobs. Another job growth occurred in professional services, retail trade, and manufacturing.
With regards to manufacturing, it is interesting to note that pre-coronavirus pandemic employment has not yet recovered. In fact, if you compare the volume of employees in February 2022 with that of February 2020, there is indeed more than a -1% drop in the number of workers.
Results close to job creation forecasts
The good news for US employment is that results have not strayed far from forecasts. If it is always good news when expectations are met, it is even more important at this point as it is the forecast of post-pandemic employment expansion.
It should be remembered that the growth has been 431,000 jobs compared to an earlier forecast of 490,000 according to various studies.
The less positive aspect, in any case, is that temporary employment is not growing at the same rate in all areas. One clear example is the fact that employment of temporary workers in health care is falling. However, it should be remembered that this decline in healthcare has much to do with the large creation of temporary employment resulting from the pandemic itself.