National Business Employment Dynamics

Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Business Employment Dynamics (BED) summary for the first quarter of 2011. Business Employment Dynamics statistics track the changes in employment at private business units from the third month of one quarter to the third month of the next. Changes consist of gross job gains and gross job losses. Gains come from opening and expanding businesses; losses come from contracting or closing businesses.

Put them together and here's what you get:

Gross job gains - Gross job losses = Net change in employment

First, the highlights by the four component categories:

• Job gains at expanding establishments totaled 5.2 million in first quarter 2011, a decrease from the previous quarter’s gain of 5.6 million.

• Opening establishments gained 1.1 million jobs in first quarter 2011, a decrease from the previous quarter when opening establishments created 1.4 million jobs. The BLS reports that this is the smallest number of jobs gained at opening establishments since the series began in September 1992.

• In the first quarter of 2011, closing establishments lost 1.1 million jobs, fewer than in the fourth quarter of 2010.

• Private-sector establishments that contracted in size lost 5 million jobs in the first quarter of 2011. As with the opening establishments figure, this is the smallest number of jobs lost at contracting establishments since the series began in September 1992.

Now, putting it all together:

The number of gross job gains from opening and expanding private sector establishments was 6.3 million from December 2010 to March 2011. Gross job losses from closing and contracting private sector establishments fell to 6.1 million. This is the smallest number of gross job losses since this series began in September 1992.

The difference between the number of gross job gains and the number of gross job losses yielded a net change of +252,000 jobs in the private sector during the first quarter of 2011.

Get more information in the full BLS news release.