Hollywood continued to add jobs in February, though the pace of increase dipped even as the broader employment market turned in another robust month.
There were 443,200 people working in jobs in movies and sound recording last month, according to data released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. While the growth didn’t match January’s strength, the number of jobs rose by 3,200 from the prior month and by 26,800 from February 2023, before to the two major strikes last year walloped the industry.
The movie jobs were among 275,000 the U.S. economy added overall during the month, even as unemployment rose to 3.9%, the first time since August the rate rose. The total figure surpassed January’s gain of 229,000 jobs and topped economists’ predictions as a variety of industries from health care to restaurants to warehousing saw employment rise.
The tick up of unemployment reflected 174,000 people losing their jobs across the country during the month. Many of those cuts came in media and tech, including at social media platform Snap and news site Vice, along with Paramount Global and Warner Music.
The number of people working at broadcasting and content providers in February dropped by 1,800 to 341,400. That’s down from 353,400 a year ago.
A surprising bright spot came in the publishing industries, which added 2,200 jobs to employ 930,300 people. That’s nevertheless down from 954,000 last year.
Economists saw good news in the data, though the market reaction was muted.
“Another month, another good report on the job market,” Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, posted on X.
He observed that the economy is creating between 200,000 and 250,000 jobs a month and unemployment is hovering just below 4%, a point many economists consider 4% the marker of “full employment,” as there will always be some people looking for work thanks to individual company fortunes and population growth.
Zandi also noted that wage growth is above 4%. The average hourly wage rose by 5 cents to $34.57 last month, BLS said.
“Not too hot, not too cold. Just right,” Zandi said.
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