By Lauren Weber
The Department of Labor released its annual average unemployment figures for 2011 on Friday, tracking the jobless rates for more than 500 occupational categories, including chief executives (2.8%), barbers (9%), and mathematicians (25.4%).
The data included some good news for workers in one of the nation?s most embattled industries: construction. After several crushing years, in which unemployment rates for many building- and housing-related jobs hovered in the mid-20s or even higher, demand for some professional and trade skills rose in 2011 over the previous year.
In some cases, the improvement was significant. The unemployment rate for cabinetmakers plunged 9.1 points, from 20.3% to 11.2%. Electricians and carpenters saw jobless rates decline more than 6 points each, from 19% to 12.1% and from 22.1% to 16%, respectively.
The upturn in those fields is consistent with a recent bump in home remodeling, says David Crowe, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders. Spending on new kitchens and other renovations was up 3.5% year-over-year in November. ?It?s all relative and [that] growth is respectable, given the status of the economy and housing in particular.?
The trend held in some of the high- and low-skill professions in the industry as well. More than 10% of architects were unemployed in 2010, but that rate fell to 7.3% last year. And while around 1 in 5 construction laborers was still out of work in 2011 ? the annual unemployment rate for those jobs was 21.2% ? that was an improvement from the 25% rate the year before.
Mr. Crowe recommended caution when viewing the numbers. While other indicators also show that construction activity is recovering, progress has been bumpy and most of the growth is recent. Housing starts for multi-family homes were strong this autumn, but those projects require far less labor than single-family homes, which have been much weaker. ?It?s conceivable that the improvement we?re looking at [in the unemployment rates] is loaded in the last quarter,? says Mr. Crowe.
Mirroring adjustments made recently to occupational categories used for Census Bureau surveys ? and reflecting some of the changes in the nature and composition of work in the United States ? the Labor Department added and deleted some classifications in its 2011 report. For instance, solar panel installers now get their own designation (their unemployment rate is 9.5%), while farmers, ranchers and agricultural managers ? previously separated into two categories ? now have one classification code, and an unemployment rate of just 2%.
The BLS data found noteworthy gains in some manufacturing-related fields, including tool and die makers, where the unemployment rate declined from 9.5% to 5.1%. However, reflecting Americans? desire to cut back on major new purchases, the rate for home appliance repairers fell 5.5 points, from 11.2% to 5.7%.
Other professions took a beating. Not surprisingly, given budget troubles at the U.S. Postal Service, the unemployment rate for postal service mail sorters, processors and processing machine operators jumped to 10.7% from 6.3%.
And crossing guards, those protectors of children at crosswalks everywhere, saw unemployment rise 6 points, from 11.6% to 17.6%. Most school-related categories, including pre-school, kindergarten and secondary teachers, lost jobs, though unemployment rates generally rose by less than 1%.
?This is not surprising at all,? said Noelle Ellerson, assistant director for policy analysis and advocacy at the American Association of School Administrators. ?School district budgets have reached a point where personnel cuts are inevitable.?
Click here for a table of unemployment rate by job.
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