Year-long+employment+gains+wiped+out+by+recent+losses

=By Ann Belser= =//Published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette//= =//9/15/11//= = = = = =Pennsylvania's unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent in August from 7.8 percent in July, the largest one-month gain since the middle of the Great Recession when it rose from 6.8 percent in January 2009 to 7.2 percent in February 2009.= =The state Department of Labor and Industry also reported that the total size of the labor force increased, even as the number of those with jobs decreased. In other words, as people were losing jobs, the number who were counted as workers or people who are looking for work grew.= =Last month 516,000 state residents were unemployed. That was 22,000, or 4.5 percent, more than in July.= =August's results mark the third straight month of rising unemployment in the state and nearly erase all the gains in employment that have come since January, when the unemployment rate was 8.3 percent.= =Pennsylvania's unemployment rate remains below the national rate of 9.1 percent for August.= =The state's employment report, which is based on a survey, was slightly at odds with a separate survey of employers, who reported having 1,500 more jobs in August than in July, a gain too small to show up in the percentages. There would have been more jobs, except the information sector was particularly badly hit by the Verizon strike. That sector showed a loss of 3,500 jobs, many of which are now back since the strike ended.= =Without the strike, service-providing jobs would have been up as a whole, even as the government sector cut 1,500 jobs, leisure and hospitality lost 1,900 jobs, and education and health services lost 1,300 jobs.= =The sector of professional and business services added 3,100 jobs. Financial activities, which includes real estate and banking, gained 1,700.= =Trade, transportation and utilities, which includes retail and wholesale trade, trucking and warehousing, showed a gain of 1,100 jobs. Other services added 900 jobs.= =Industries that produce goods showed a net gain of 2,900 jobs. Manufacturing gained 2,200 jobs, mining and logging added 800 jobs, but construction showed a loss of 100 jobs.= = Read more: [|http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11259/1175007-28.stm#ixzz1YAQmhjTl] = = = =News= =home=