It’s hard to talk about today’s economy without mentioning the impact of both the credit and mortgage crises. These crises have been most influential in the financial services industry where job losses have been a consistent reality over the past year. Although we’ve seen a return to the center with minimal losses and even some job increases over the past few months, June resulted in 10,000 job losses for the industry with the biggest hit in credit intermediation which lost a total of 5,200 jobs. These reductions indicate that, although losses are slowing, we may not have hit the bottom yet in regard to the fallout from the subprime mortgage meltdown. Overall though, the industry is holding its own with an unemployment rate of 3.4% which is far below the national average, indicating its relative strength compared to the rest of the economy.

Key finance sector job growth in thousands (YTD 08)

Source: BLS Data