Legal Sector Employment Flat as US Adds 128,000 Jobs

The latest jobs report shows the legal industry again trailing employment growth in the broader economy.

November 01, 2019 at 02:37 PM

3 minute read

The original version of this story was published on The American Lawyer

Despite a GM autoworkers strike that temporarily wiped 50,000 jobs off the books in September, the U.S. economy still managed to add 128,000 jobs from September to October, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

Normally that number would be seen as a tepid growth, but with most of the GM jobs expected to come back on the books for the November tally, the month is not considered a disappointment, analysts told The New York Times.

Employment in the legal industry, which includes attorneys, paralegals, legal secretaries and others, remained flat with an addition of just 300 jobs, according to the preliminary BLS figures. Although a tiny gain in comparison to the 1,147,900 who now work in the industry, the addition of any jobs is welcome after September saw a loss of 900 workers.

October continued a year-long trend in the legal industry of modest growth or minimal contraction month to month. August of this year saw 4,100 jobs added, but June saw a loss of 1,000 jobs and April saw a loss of 700.

Compared to October 2018, the sector has 5,200 more jobs on the books.

Professional services as a whole saw growth of 22,000 jobs in October—again outpacing the legal industry but not matching its previous month's growth of 34,000 jobs in September.

The broad U.S. job market saw little change, with gains coming from the hospitality and financial services industry and manufacturing, and auto sector work showing large declines because of the GM strike. Federal government employment declined as temporary jobs related to the 2020 census were cut.

The unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.6%, or about 5.9 million workers. Among demographic groups, adult male unemployment was at 3.2%, adult female at 3.2% and teenagers were at 12.1%.

The job market continues to have lower unemployment among those of Asian descent (2.9%), while blacks (5.4%) and Hispanics (4.1%) continue to see higher than national averages.

Experts credited strong consumer spending with propping up the jobs market even as confidence in business leaders wanes, companies post fewer jobs and business investment is down.

This marks the 109th consecutive month of U.S. job growth, more than double the previous high.

Other BLS statistics of note:

Long-term unemployment stands at 1.3 million, or 21.5% of the overall unemployed.
Labor force participation remained unchanged at 63.3%.
Part-time workers who desire full-time work stayed steady at 4.4 million.
Food services has added an average of 38,000 jobs over the last three months, compared to 16,000 per month over the first seven months of the year.
Health care has added 402,000 jobs over the last 12 months.