Healthy employment in health care

Employment in the U.S. rose 110,000 in September and the number of jobs created in August was revised upward, from 4,000 to 89,000, largely a result of a statistical fluke in the number of teaching jobs previously reported that has now been corrected.

Interestingly, as part of the Labor Department's annual benchmark revision, job creation for the year ending in March 2007 was revised downward by 297,000. Despite the statistical rebound in September, the multi-year trend in job creation remains the same - a steady decline in job growth since late-2005.

September gains were seen in Education and Health Care (+44, 000), Government (+37,000), Leisure and Hospitality (+35,000), and Professional and Business Services (+21,000) while Manufacturing (-18,000) and Construction (-14,000) both posted losses.

With nine months of data now in the books for 2007, health care is the clear leader in employment growth. Of the almost half million new jobs in the Education and Health Care Services category, only 91,000 new jobs are in education - the health care industry has created a whopping 377,000 new positions and is ahead of all other categories by a wide margin.

So far in 2007, a total of 240,000 new positions have been created in the Food Services and Drinking Establishment sub-category within the Leisure and Hospitality category shown above.

This continues a well-established trend in the U.S. employment data in recent years - a symbiosis, of sorts, between a food service industry that caters to a nation of over-eaters and added work in the health care industry as a result of record levels of obesity.