March showed slight gains in terms of legal employment, but the overall story is still much of the same. The legal industry continues on at a slight upward tick, yet remains well below where it once was prior to the recession.
According to a recent Reuters report and an April 5 article by the JD Journal, the legal sector added 2,000 jobs during the month of March, increasing total legal sector employment from 1.125 million to 1.127 million. In all, this gain contributed to the broader 88,000 jobs that were gained nationally throughout all sectors—as the national unemployment rate fell from 7.7% to 7.6%. The new figure of 1.127 million legal sector employees is 9,000 more than the 1.118 that were employed this time last year in March 2012. Good news, but is it good enough? Total legal employment still remains more than 60,000 below the 1.18 million that were employed at the sector’s peak prior to the economic downturn.