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    Market Data

    Net Job Creation by Industry through December 2016

    Written by Peter Wright


    The Bureau of Labor Statistics employment reports, both national and regional, are fundamental to our understanding of where the various steel consuming sectors are headed. In this analysis we are examining multiple data sources to try to develop a broad base of understanding. This data complements other more specific information on construction and manufacturing activities that we routinely report in the Steel Market Update Executive and Premium publications. These two macro-economic sectors account for almost all of the steel consumption in the US.

    In December net job creation was 156,000 which was down from 204,000 in November. October was revised down by 7,000 and November up by 46,000. Using a three month moving average (3MMA), the result for December was 165,000 down from 182,000 in November. Figure 1 shows the 3MMA of the number of jobs created as the brown bars since 1990.

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