Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press 

under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that 

the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Statement of

Keith Hall

Commissioner

Bureau of Labor Statistics

before the

Joint Economic Committee

UNITED STATES CONGRESS

Friday, March 6, 2009

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the employment and 

unemployment data we released this morning.

The sharp and widespread contraction in the labor market 

continued in February. Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 

651,000, following declines of 681,000 in December and 655,000 

in January. Since the recession began in December 2007, job 

losses have totaled 4.4 million, well more than half of which 

occurred in the past 4 months. In February, the unemployment 

rate climbed from 7.6 to 8.1 percent, the highest rate in over 

25 years.
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Manufacturing employment declined by 168,000 in February 

and has dropped by 1.3 million since the start of the recession. 

Employment has fallen in nearly all manufacturing industries 

during this period. In February, manufacturing hours decreased 

by two-tenths of an hour, as did factory overtime hours.

Construction employment fell by 104,000 in February with 

losses throughout the sector. This industry has shed 904,000 

jobs since the recession began, with about half of the decline 

occurring in the past 4 months.

In February, employment continued to decline sharply 

throughout most of the service-providing sector. Professional 

and business services employment dropped by 180,000, including 

78,000 jobs lost at temporary help agencies. Employment in 

temporary help has fallen by 686,000 since the recession began. 

Other large over-the-month job losses occurred in transportation 

and warehousing (-49,000), especially trucking; financial 

activities (-44,000); retail trade (-40,000); and wholesale 

trade (-37,000).

Elsewhere in the service-providing sector, health care 

employment continued to grow with an increase of 27,000 in 

February, about in line with its recent trend.

Average hourly earnings for private-sector production and 

nonsupervisory workers increased by 3 cents, or 0.2 percent, in 

February. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have 
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risen by 3.6 percent. From January 2008 to January 2009, the 

seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners 

and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) fell by 0.7 percent.

Measures from the survey of households also showed 

continued deterioration of labor market conditions. The 

unemployment rate jumped by half a percentage point in February

to 8.1 percent, the highest rate since December 1983. Jobless 

rates continued to trend up across the major demographic groups 

in February. The number of unemployed swelled by 851,000 to 

12.5 million.

Since the recession began, the rise in unemployment has 

been concentrated among persons who lost jobs, as opposed to job 

leavers or people joining the labor force. From December 2007 

to February 2009, the number of job losers has doubled to 7.7 

million, and their share of total unemployment has risen from 

50.0 to 62.3 percent.

The number of unemployed individuals experiencing long 

spells of joblessness also has risen. In February, 2.9 million 

persons had been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, up from 1.3 

million at the start of the recession.

The employment-population ratio was 60.3 percent in 

February, down slightly over the month and well below its 62.7 

percent level at the start of the recession. Among the 

employed, the number of persons working part time who would 
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prefer to be working full time climbed sharply over the month. 

There were 8.6 million such workers in February, an increase of 

787,000 over the month and nearly 4 million since the recession 

began.

Among persons who were neither working nor looking for work

in February, about 2.1 million were classified as marginally 

attached to the labor force, up from about 1.6 million a year 

earlier. These individuals wanted a job, were available for 

work, and had looked for a job within the last 12 months. The 

number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally 

attached who believed no jobs were available for them, has 

nearly doubled over the past 12 months to 731,000.

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment fell by 651,000 in 

February, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent. Since 

the beginning of the recession in December 2007, job losses have 

totaled 4.4 million.

My colleagues and I now would be glad to answer your 

questions.