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 7, 2008

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

 Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the February 

labor market data that we released this morning. 

 Nonfarm payroll employment edged down in February 

(-63,000), and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged 

at 4.8 percent. Private-sector employment declined by 101,000. 

Job losses occurred in manufacturing, construction, and retail 

trade. Employment growth continued in health care and in food 

services. 

Manufacturing employment fell by 52,000 over the month. 

Over the past 12 months, this industry has shed 299,000 jobs. 

In February, employment declined in motor vehicles, printing, 

and semiconductors, as well as in wood products and furniture--
2

two housing-sensitive industries. Factory hours and overtime 

were unchanged. 

Elsewhere in the goods-producing sector, construction lost 

39,000 jobs over the month. Construction employment has fallen 

by 331,000 since peaking in September 2006. Over this period, 

job losses were concentrated in residential building and in 

residential specialty trades; employment in the nonresidential 

components of construction changed little on net. 

 In the service-providing sector, retail employment was down 

by 34,000 in February. Job losses occurred in department 

stores, auto dealers, and building and garden supply stores. 

Over the past 12 months, retail employment has shown no net 

growth. Within professional and business services, employment 

in the temporary help industry fell by 28,000 over the month and 

by 117,000 since the most recent peak in December 2006. 

 Health care employment continued to expand in February, 

rising by 36,000. Employment in food services continued to 

trend up, although growth in this industry has slowed in the 

past 4 months. Most other private service-providing industries 

showed little employment change in February. 

 Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory 

workers in the private sector rose by 5 cents over the month and 

have increased by 3.7 percent over the past 12 months. 
3

Turning now to the labor market data from the survey of 

households, the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged over 

the month at 4.8 percent. A year earlier, the jobless rate was 

4.5 percent. Over the year, the number of unemployed persons 

rose by 544,000 to 7.4 million. 

The increase in unemployment over the past 12 months was 

concentrated among persons who lost jobs and had no expectation 

of being recalled. Since February 2007, the number of these job 

losers increased by 450,000 to 2.9 million; their share of total 

unemployment rose from 35.4 to 39.0 percent. The number of 

persons unemployed for other reasons, such as voluntarily 

leaving a job or entering the labor market, showed little change 

over this period. 

In terms of unemployment duration, 35.6 percent of the 

unemployed had been searching for work for less than 5 weeks in 

February, while 17.5 percent were still searching after 27 or 

more weeks. These proportions were little changed from a year 

earlier. 

The number of individuals in the labor force fell by 

450,000 in February to 153.4 million, and labor force 

participation declined to 65.9 percent of the population. The 

labor force participation rate has been at or near 66.0 percent 

since last spring. 
4

The employment-to-population ratio was 62.7 percent in 

February. This measure remains well below its recent peak of 

63.4 percent in December 2006. Among the employed, the number 

of persons working part time who would prefer to be working full 

time has been growing. In February, there were 4.9 million such 

workers, an increase of about 637,000 from a year earlier. 

 Among persons not in the labor force, about 1.6 million 

were marginally attached to the labor force. The marginally 

attached are individuals who are not currently looking for work, 

but want and are available for work and have searched for a job 

sometime in the prior 12 months. The number of discouraged 

workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believe no jobs 

are available for them, was 396,000 in February, little changed 

from a year earlier. 

 In summary, nonfarm payroll employment edged down in 

February, with job losses in manufacturing, construction, and 

retail trade. The unemployment rate was essentially unchanged 

at 4.8 percent. 

 My colleagues and I now would be glad to answer your 

questions.