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The Legal Industry Keeps On Losing Jobs

Should you panic yet?

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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) had more bad news for the legal industry on Friday. That’s when it released the jobs data from February and reported the legal sector lost 200 jobs that month — this on top of 1,200 jobs that were lost in the industry in January.

The BLS numbers were, overall, rosy for the economy. As reported by Law.com, 313,000 jobs were added overall in February:

While Friday’s employment release from BLS shows a slight dropoff in the number of legal services jobs in the United States, the country’s economy as a whole enjoyed strong job growth results in February. The agency reported that the U.S. economy added 313,000 jobs in February, marking the country’s 89th consecutive month of job growth. The results reportedly outpaced the expectations of economists, who had anticipated that about 200,000 jobs would be added in the month.

So where did all the legal sector jobs go?

Well, the BLS numbers include more than just lawyer jobs — job losses for paralegals, legal secretaries, and other members of a law firm’s staff are counted too. So the Biglaw trend of cutting back on administrative positions in an effort to streamline costs — one that isn’t ending anytime soon — tanks the numbers.

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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