WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Labor Statistics says, as of December 2015, there were 774,600 jobs in D.C., more jobs than D.C.’s resident population of about 672,000.
The total number of public and private sector jobs in D.C. is up by 10,600, or 1.4 percent from a year ago, while the District’s population has grown by about 2 percent in the last year.
More than one in three jobs in the D.C. is a government job, either federal or District, with 237,100 total government jobs last year. The number of federal government jobs in D.C. last month was up 1,500 from a year earlier.
Education and health services accounted for 131,700 jobs in D.C. last month, up 0.3 percent from a year ago. Financial activities employment in D.C. was 31,400, up 2.6 percent from a year ago. Professional and business services jobs were up 2.9 percent from a year earlier to 165,600 jobs.
While the federal government, professional services and healthcare are the D.C.’s biggest employers, D.C.’s economy also thrives on tourism. The Leisure and Hospitality sector added 1,000 jobs in December, employing nearly 71,000, or 2 percent more than a year earlier.
The District’s unemployment rate remains higher than the overall Washington metro, holding steady at 6.6 percent in December, but that’s 1.1 percent lower than the D.C. unemployment rate as a year ago.
You can see a breakdown of jobs by sector, as prepared by the District’s Department of Employment Services Office of Labor Market Research here.
