WANTED forecasts a loss of 8,000 jobs in the Finance and Insurance sector for August, the smallest loss for this sector since July 2008. This follows a smaller-than-expected loss of 12,900 jobs reported by the BLS for July. WANTED Technologies' Hiring Demand Indicator (the yellow line in the chart below) for Financial Services showed another solid uptick in August, 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 fourth consecutive month, from -32 percent in July to -27 percent in August. 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.
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Employment in the "Securities, Commodity Contracts, Investments" (NAICS 523) segment is finally in a position where job losses may come to an end. This month we predict a gain of 600 jobs in this segment. The largest job losses were in January and February 2009 when this segment lost a total of 25,000 jobs. Hiring Demand has been improving on a year-over-year basis, rising steadily from -51 percent in April to -12 percent in July.
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Within other industry sub-groups, the bulk of August's sector losses comes from credit intermediation and related services (NAICS 522), where WANTED forecasts a drop of 4,800 jobs. We also predict a loss of 1,500 positions with insurance carriers (NAICS 524).
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its Preliminary August Estimate for the Finance and Insurance sector as part of its Employment Situation report on Friday, September 4th, at 8:30 AM.
For more charts, graphs and forecasts, visit our BLS Forecast page.
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