The economy lost 500 travel booking jobs in March, according to the latest Jobs Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). At the same time, travel booking jobs were up by 1,300 versus the same month last year.
The leisure and hospitality sector as a whole added 33,000 jobs in March, according to the BLS report. Year over year, the sector was up by 430,000 jobs.
The results track with another recent report on travel industry jobs, the Paychex | IHIS Markit Small Business Employment Watch. That study, which focuses entirely on small businesses, showed that job growth in the leisure and hospitality sector was down in March by 0.94 percent, even as small businesses overall showed a decline in jobs growth of 0.15 percent -- the first such decrease for the year in this report. Hourly earnings, however, were a bright spot for the travel and hospitality sector, which posted the biggest gains out of all the sectors in the study, of 4.2 percent.
The economy added a total of 196,000 jobs in March, according to the BLS report, while the total unemployment rate held steady at 3.8 percent. The health care and professional and technical services sector led the way in job gains.
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