The economy added 800 travel booking jobs in September, and the sector was up 700 jobs year over year. The broader leisure and hospitality industry, however, lost 17,000 jobs that month, although it was up 296,000 jobs year over year.
The picture for travel booking jobs was an improvement over August when, despite adding 1,000 jobs for the month, the sector was down by 1,500 jobs year over year. That month leisure and hospitality was up by 17,000 jobs, and it also posted a 253,000-job year-over-year gain.
Previously, over the course of this summer, travel booking jobs had been down, by 500 jobs in June, and relatively flat in May. Before that, however, the sector had posted a four-month run of job gains that started in December as the travel industry began to recover from the impact of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Leisure and hospitality jobs have also been steadily climbing during the same period.
In terms of the overall economy, the unemployment declined to 3.7 percent in September, with total nonfarm payroll increasing by 134,000. Job gains were particularly concentrated in professional and business services (of which the Bureau of Labor Statistics considers travel booking jobs a part), health care and transportation and warehousing.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
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