Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment data for December 2009 last week. The loss of 85,000 more jobs caught many people by surprise, but I was more interested in what the data would tell us about what some people are calling the lost decade of the 2000s. Here are a few observations. I’ll post more on Twitter @civicanalytics.

• The story of manufacturing job losses has been well told, but the numbers are still staggering when you stand back and assess the damage. The US economy lost 5.65 million jobs in the manufacturing sector during 1999-2009. That’s a 33 percent hit, or 1,547 jobs lost per day.
• Education and health services–or eds and meds as the economists are saying these days–accounted for nearly 70 percent of all service-sector job growth during 1999-2009. Health care alone added nearly 3 million jobs and grew by 28 percent. The home health care industry is growing 6.7 percent annually.
• Computer (-49%) and semiconductor (-43%) manufacturing jobs declined nearly as fast as motor vehicles and parts manufacturing jobs (-50%).