The Bureau of Labor Statistics today reported a loss of 18,200 jobs in the Finance and Insurance sector for June, following a smaller-than-expected revised loss of 17,600 jobs reported by the BLS for May. WANTED Technologies' Hiring Demand Indicator (the yellow line in the chart below) for Financial Services showed a solid uptick in June, coming off of a three-year low in April.
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The Financial Services Hiring Demand Indicator–a measure of year-over-year change in online job advertising– rose for the second consecutive month, from -41 percent in May to a revised -37 percent in June. The trend in Hiring Demand in Financial Services had been moving steadily downward from a peak it reached in March 2007 prior to the onset of the recession in December 2007, reaching a bottom that appeared to occur in April at -48 percent.
As we previously reported, confidence seems to be building in this sector, with ten of the largest recipients of TARP funds starting to pay back those funds while experiencing their own rising Hiring Demand, and with Citigroup and other financial institutions planning to boost executive salaries as much as 50 percent to compensate for lost bonuses in 2008. Goldman Sachs is predicting its most profitable year ever, along with record bonuses.
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Within the NAICS code subcategories in the Financial sector, hiring demand data showed a tick upward in online job ads for the third consecutive month in NAICS 522, Credit Intermediation and Related Services–the banking industry. BLS reported a loss of 10,200 jobs in June, a drop from May's revised loss of 6,200.
In NAICS 523, Securities, Commodity Contracts and Other Financial investments — the brokerage community–we saw a second consecutive strong uptick in hiring demand in June. BLS reported a loss in June of 6,300 jobs, a slight decline over its revised May number.
In NAICS 524, Insurance Carriers and Related, the overall trend in employment losses has been positive for the past five months. In June employment fell 2,100 jobs, less than the prior month's revised loss of 6,000 and much less than the trough that occurred in December 2008 at a loss of 10,100 jobs. Hiring demand data showed a slight uptick in June, continuing the overall upward trend we've seen since the three-year low in January 2009.
For more charts, graphs and forecasts, visit our BLS Forecast page.
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