Employment in the blue collar sectors of construction, manufacturing and mining and logging increased by 55,000 jobs in November. That indicates an overall slowdown when compared to the three-month average from September to November of 86,330 jobs, according to the latest Blue Collar Jobs Tracker.
“The rebound from earlier in the year is slowing to a crawl in the construction and manufacturing sectors. Surprisingly, mining appears to be doing better,” explained Matt Sedlar, CEPR data analyst.
Considering the sectors are 894,000 jobs below where they were 12 months ago, a slowdown in the recovery from March is concerning, though hardly surprising given the state of the pandemic in the U.S.
In many states, the sectors of mining and logging are combined. Mining and logging jobs increased by 1,000 in November, or 0.16% over the previous month, led by mining with a net increase of 1,300 jobs. That’s in contrast to the last 12 months, when the two sectors saw jobs decrease by 100,000 jobs over the last 12 months.
November construction jobs increased by by 27,000 in November, or 0.37% over the previous month. The South remains the region with the largest net increase in jobs, with 25,300 added in November, a 0.88% increase over the previous month.
Manufacturing jobs increased by 0.22% over the previous month. By region, the South yet again saw the largest net increase in jobs, with 12,700 added, or a 0.31% rise over the previous month.
