WASHINGTON–Jobs in the insurance industry and related areas dropped 2.3 percent in February compared to January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, but the sector still has 16,000 more employed than a year ago.
The increase in insurance industry employment is an anomaly in a report that showed that U.S. employers in general slashed 63,000 jobs in February, the most in five years, according to the Bureau, which is a unit of the Department of Labor.
The report's seasonally adjusted figures showed that 2,311,300 people were employed by insurance carriers and related activities in February, down from the 2,316,600 employed in January.
But, the report showed, this was a major increase from the 2,295,300 employed in the insurance industry in February 2007, despite the fact that the property-casualty industry is reporting price declines.
This contrasts with the rest of the economy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, while the nation's unemployment rate dipped to 4.8 percent in February from 4.9 percent in January, hundreds of thousands of people left the civilian labor force.
Christian E. Weller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, a liberal group, and associate professor, Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, at the University of Massachusetts Boston, called the job loss "alarming."
He said the "pain of the fallout of the housing and mortgage crisis is palpable across the entire spectrum of jobs and industries."
Mr. Weller added that, "It is now patently obvious that the woes in the residential construction sector have spilled over into the economy at large."
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called the employment numbers "very troubling."
Rep. Frank said the numbers confirm that the nation faces a problem "that is serious and worsening."
He said the new data "increases the urgency that we must move quickly to address the single biggest cause," the millions of foreclosures that will be occurring, "and also provide help to state and local governments to deal with the serious negative consequences of those foreclosures.
"If we do not act promptly and effectively, as the very disappointing employment numbers indicate, we will face a slowdown that is far worse than appeared six weeks ago," Rep. Frank said.
He added that, "Any effort to take comfort in the slight drop in the unemployment rate would be completely misguided. This drop in the nominal unemployment rate reflects the fact that large numbers of people have left the workforce or have given up looking for work because the jobs are simply not there. In fact, the labor force participation rate has dropped from 66.2 percent in February 2007 to 65.9 percent in February 2008."
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