Quarterly Data Series on Business Employment Dynamics News Release — 2021-01-27

From March 2020 to June 2020, gross job losses from closing and contracting private-sector establishments were 20.4 million, an increase of 12.6 million jobs from the previous quarter, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over this period, gross job gains from opening and expanding private-sector establishments were 5.7 million, a decrease of 1.2 million jobs from the previous quarter. The difference between the number of gross job gains and the number of gross job losses yielded a net employment loss of 14.6 million jobs in the private sector during the second quarter of 2020. (See tables A and 1.) The change in the number of jobs over time is the net result of increases and decreases in employment that occur at all private businesses in the economy. Business Employment Dynamics (BED) statistics track these changes in employment at private-sector establishments from the third month of one quarter to the third month of the next.