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600 New Jobs in the Legal Sector

The legal world hasn’t been expecting miracles, and hasn’t gotten any. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a figure last Friday that didn’t raise any eyebrows: a mere 600 jobs have been added to the legal sector in October.

That’s part of the 171,000 jobs that have been overall added to the market, which is slowing nosing in the right direction. The unemployment level, nevertheless,  is still at around 7.9 percent.

As Reuters reported, there are a range of observations from credible sources that see only modest improvements in the legal sector: the Federal Reserve Bank in Richard, Va. finds only “modest improvements” in legal demand; the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank “noted increased hiring and said compensation had risen this year,” but “overall demand for services was not much changed since the last report”; the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank put it on a positive note when it referred to the legal demand as “steady.”

Last September, Wells Fargo Wealth Management identified the cause of such poor increases as deriving from the disparity between revenues and expenses: law firms have grown 3 percent the second quarter, but are expending 6.5 percent more.

Nevertheless, this is the best looking legal employment we’ve seen since July 2009.

Daniel June: Daniel June studied English literature at Michigan State University, graduating in 2003. Working a potpourri of jobs since, from cake-decorator to proofreader, his passion has always been writing, resulting in books of essays, novels, and children’s novellas.