Employment growth accelerates, legal services stall

SAN DIEGO. The U.S. Department of Labor reported today that nonfarm payrolls increased a strong 200,000 in December, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent. This is the lowest level of unemployment since February 2009. Job gains were in the fields of transportation and warehousing, retail trade, manufacturing, health care, and mining.

Legal services is the only category of professional and technical services that posted a decline in December, according to the U. S. DOL report.
Legal services declined by 1,800 jobs in November,  which completely  wipes out the negligible gains made in the few previous months and brings legal services total job losses to approximately 5,000 in the last 12 months.

This is the sixth consecutive month in which at least 100,000 jobs were added overall. While this is not enough to bring the economy back to pre-Great Recession levels, it certainly helps President Obama during his election year.