National Employment Statistics

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently released its first quarter employment data. In March 2012, national employment was 130.2 million, up by 1.8 percent or 2.3 million jobs, from March 2011. The 328 U.S. counties with 75,000 or more jobs accounted for 71.1 percent of total U.S. employment and 77.5 percent of total wages. These 328 counties had a net job growth of 1.6 million over the year, accounting for 70.2 percent of the overall U.S. employment increase.