As nationwide unemployment inched up to 10.2% in October, employment in the telecommunications sector remained flat from month to month, while employment in the computer and electronic products sector was down about 6,300 jobs from September to October.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the sectors hit hardest from September to October were construction, manufacturing and retail trade. “In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2%, the highest rate since April 1983. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points,” the bureau said. Healthcare continues to be a bright spot, actually adding 597,000 jobs since the start of the recession.
About 1.11 million people were employed in the computer and electronics products sector in October, down from about 1.24 million people employed in the sector in October 2008, a decline of about 10 percentage points year over year. Of the 6,300 jobs lost from September to October, 2,500 were in the semiconductor and electronics components sector; another 1,800 jobs were lost in the computer and peripheral equipment segment and 1,100 jobs were in the communications equipment category. Nonsupervisory employees in the computer and electronics sector worked an average of 40.6 hours a week in October, at an average of $22.02 per hour, compared to working 40.9 hours a week at $21.42 per hour a year ago.
The telecommunications sector added roughly 300 jobs from September to October, according to the Labor Bureau, employing about 977,100 people, down about 3 percentage points from the 1.01 million employed a year ago. Telecommunications is included in the broader information category when it comes to hourly wages statistics from the bureau. Workers in the information sector made an average of $25.73 per hour in October, compared to $25.06 per hour in October 2008. Wages increased 19 cents per hour from September to October. Information sector workers average about 36.4 hours per week, compared to working about 36.9 hours per week in October 2008.
In the wireless sector specifically, AT&T Inc. said in its third-quarter earnings report that it had cut another 4,000 position in the quarter, and about 18,000 workers this year to date. Nokia Siemens Networks reported last week plans to cut almost 6,000 workers worldwide as it restructures its business.
But analyst Chetan Sharma of Chetan Sharma Consulting said in a new report today that the worst is over for the U.S. mobile industry, despite some hard-hit sectors in the industry. “While the flailing economy hit certain segments of the wireless ecosystem hard, especially the infrastructure and handset segments, consumers haven’t really pulled back on the mobile data overall spending. Additionally, the capex spending has stayed strong in 2009 given the activity around 3G/4G deployments and trials,” Sharma said in a new report. “As we mentioned in our last three research notes that this time around, the fate of the U.S. mobile industry is more closely tied to the overall economy compared to the previous recessions. As the consumer sentiment improved over the last two quarters along with better than expected Q1-3 2009 earnings from corporations, the mobile industry is back on track. While the structural flaws in various industry segments remain, the outlook for the Q4 2009 and 2010 remains bright and we are expecting the overall data revenues to now increase by over 30% compared to 2008 with a record-setting Q4.”
