Updated at 7 p.m. ET: Federal regulators Wednesday approved new rules that could make it easier to find work for convicted criminals and others who have gotten into legal trouble.

By a 4-1 vote, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission approved the rules for employers who use criminal background checks, calling for careful consideration of how and when such reviews can be used in pre-employment screenings and in the workplace because of their potential to be biased against certain groups, such as racial minorities.

“The new guidance clarifies and updates the EEOC’s longstanding policy concerning the use of arrest and conviction records in employment, which will assist job seekers, employees, employers, and many other agency stakeholders,” said EEOC Chair Jacqueline Berrien.

The changes are seen as a boon for workers who have been unable to land jobs or have lost jobs because of their criminal histories.

“This is a major change for the good in how employers review prospective employees,” said Samuel Miller, a labor attorney who has litigated criminal background suits on behalf of employees.

“It creates presumption that consideration of criminal history is illegal,” he explained. “And it is backed up by thorough documentation of racial disparities. So it should be given much more credence by employers and judges.”

Earlier this year Pepsico’s Pepsi Beverages unit settled charges of hiring discrimination related to its criminal background check policies.

The company was using arrest records and convictions to deny job applicants positions, but the EEOC suit charged the practice impacted minority employees disproportionately and as a result was illegal under the nation’s labor laws.

The new 55-page document, intended to prevent racial and ethnic discrimination, calls on employers to use criminal background checks only when they can show they are job-related and necessary for the business. For example, the guidelines say employers should consider the "nature of the crime, the time elapsed and the nature of the job."

The guidelines also caution that "arrests are not proof of criminal conduct" and may not be sufficient to exclude a candidate.

The EEOC acted  in part because blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to get caught up in the legal system. Given current incarceration rates, about one in 17 white men are likely to serve time in prison during their lifetimes, compared with one in three African-American men, the agency said.

Employer advocates were pleased the EEOC did not entirely bar the use of criminal background checks.

“The new guidance may require employers to tweak existing policies, but is largely a collective restatement of the EEOC's longstanding guidance documents on employer use of criminal background checks,” said Katharine Parker, an employment attorney for Proskauer.

The EEOC does not have the authority to ban “all uses of arrest or conviction records or other screening devices,” said EEOC spokeswoman Christine Nazer. “The EEOC simply seeks to ensure that their use are undertaken carefully to ensure that employment opportunities are not denied inappropriately.”

To that end, she added, the new guidance from the EEOC:

• Focuses on criminal record screening and employment discrimination based on race and national origin. 
• Discusses the differences between the treatment of arrest and conviction records.
• Reviews the disparate treatment and disparate impact of such reviews. 

Criminal background checks have become increasingly popular in the last few years partly because technology has made it easier to dig up dirt and partly because hiring managers want any tools to help them weed through the many applicants, given the tight labor market.

Once upon a time, employers only used such background reviews for workers who were in sensitive positions where they handled money or worked with children. Today, their use has become widespread no matter what the gig. About 73 percent of employers use criminal background checks on all employees, according to the most recent data from the Society of Human Resource Management.

The update to the rules has been a long time coming for employee advocates.

“The last guidance was written before anyone even knew what the Internet was, and a criminal background check was rarely used because it required so much personal attention to detail,” said Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “This update reflects the reality of a 21^st century workplace, where background checks are widely performed and applicants are thoughtlessly denied en masse.”

But companies view such screenings as necessary to keep the workplace safe, fight against theft and also to protect against negligent hiring suits, said Angela Bosworth, vice president of compliance and general counsel for EmployeeScreenIQ, a third-party employee screening firm.

“Right now, employers are trying to build up their workforces as the economy turns around and they’re able to hire again, but we’re concerned this will create a barrier,” she explained. “It’s going to muddy the waters on what employers can and can’t do.”

What’s your take? Should employers be allowed to use past criminal conduct to determine whom to hire and fire? Share your thoughts on Facebook. 

Haraz N. Ghanbari / AP

President Barack Obama, speaking at the White House Forum on Women and the Economy Friday, said he welcomed the most recent jobs data, but they showed the economy still has a long way to go.

Friday's report showing a sharp hiring slowdown in March lends weight to suspicions that a string of positive monthly reports may have been too good to be true.

But the disappointing numbers for March may not be as bad as they seem. The problem, say economists, is that unusual weather and seasonal adjustments may have thrown this winter's data out of whack.

According to the Labor Department's latest monthly survey, employers added just 120,000 jobs in March, well short of the expected pace of more than 200,000 reached in each of the previous three months. 

Despite the lackluster gains, the official unemployment rate fell a notch to 8.2 percent in March, the lowest since January 2009, but only because fewer people were looking for work.

The economy has added 858,000 jobs since December and 3.5 million over the past two years. But economists have been paring back their forecasts for economic growth in 2012, and a symptom of what they are seeing may be showing up in the slower pace of hiring.

"Ultimately the job growth number is determined by how the GDP (gross domestic product) grows," said University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, who served as President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser. "We've had three or four very strong months, but those all reflected the uptick in the growth rate. I'm afraid the growth rate is slowing down a bit."

Last month, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned that this winter's surge in hiring was not sustainable without a pickup in spending by businesses and consumers.

The outlook for the job market has been clouded recently by mixed signals. On Thursday, the government reported that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to a four-year low. Independent surveys show consumers and businesses are more confident and spending more. Production levels at factories are rising. A private survey released Wednesday showed the service sector boosted hiring in March.

But little of that improvement was reflected in Friday's employment data. Temporary help fell 7,500 last month after rising 54,900 in February, and the average workweek fell slightly.  

Despite the relatively mild weather, the construction industry shed 7,000 jobs in March, according to the government data. Those numbers helped confirm some economists' suspicions that this winter's jobs reports may have been skewed upward by the formula used to adjust the data for seasonal factors.

Like many economic statistics, the government’s employment data is adjusted to factor out recurring seasonal trends, such as the surge in temporary hiring by retailers and by the postal service during the holiday season. The purpose is to get a better idea of underlying, longer-lasting trends.

The unusual severity of layoffs during the recession of 2007 may have thrown the numbers off course this winter, especially given the unusually mild weather in much of the country. The result is that many economists say the March number may be understating the job market's true strength.

"This (disappointing March data) feels like, to me, seasonals and weather," said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Analytics. "Retail normally hires 20,000 to 25,000 per month. There's no reason, given everything else we know about retail, why they shouldn't be doing this. They subtracted 35,000 (according to the March data). That's a very long swing."

The dip in the jobless rate from 8.3 percent in February -- and 9.1 percent as recently as August -- extended a welcome trend for the White House. But that trend is unlikely to continue without a substantially stronger pace of job creation. Most economists don't see the jobless rate falling below current levels before the November election.

The job market has already taken center stage in the presidential campaign. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican challenger, blamed the president's policies this week for slow growth and high unemployment. On Friday, he called the latest jobs report "weak and very troubling."

The Obama campaign has said Romney would reinstate policies that led to the recession: lower taxes for the wealthy and less regulation for business. But the president acknowledged Friday that voters aren't happy with the pace of the economic recovery.

‘‘It’s clear to every American that there will still be ups and downs along the way and that we've got a lot more work to do,’’ Obama said during remarks at a White House forum on women and the economy.

If the economy is slowing, policymakers at the Fed face a difficult summer. Five years after one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression, the central bank has embarked on two rounds of massive bond buying to force interest rates to the floor. It's not at all clear whether a third round would have any greater impact.

Fed policymakers are also powerless to offset the current recession sweeping Europe and a slowdown in China's economy.

"(Friday's jobs data are) a reminder that the U.S. recovery is not suddenly going to transform into a spectacular success, particularly not at a time when the rest of the world economy is stumbling," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics.

Discuss the job market on our Facebook page.

Ross Franklin / AP file

The restaurant industry is stacking up in terms of jobs. Pay? Not so much.

For all you foodies hoping to land a gig in the glamorous restaurant industry in the months and years ahead, there will be plenty of jobs to be had. The problem is, many of the jobs don't come with a glamorous paycheck.

Spring and summer hiring in the restaurant sector is expected to be robust, barring any unforeseen issues such as skyrocketing gas prices, said Hudson Riehle, an economist and head of research for the National Restaurant Association, on Monday. Preliminary estimates for employment this summer are expected to top the 425,000 jobs the sector created last year, he said. The industry trade group will release an official summer hiring report in May or June.

National Restaurant Association

Restaurant employment continues to rise.

“The restaurant industry added 530,000 jobs since the end of the recession, about 150,000 above the pre-recession peak,” he explained, adding that the growth pattern is exactly the opposite of national employment numbers, which are “still below pre-recession peaks.”

Annual job growth in the segment is projected to increase by 2.3 percent this year, up from a 1.9 percent uptick in 2011, according to a recent National Restaurant Association study.

The food service sector overall also is expected to remain strong for the next decade.

Food services and accommodation employment is projected to be the sixth biggest job generator through 2020, creating 1 million new jobs, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month. But jobs in the food service sector, including everything from waiters to chefs, pay about $19,000 to less than $50,000 a year on the high end.

It’s good news that the sector is generating more jobs. But the growth of low-paying food service jobs that often don't come with health benefits or paid sick time, may not bode well for the overall health of the economy.

“They’re better than nothing but it’s bad for the economy that such low-wage jobs constitute the major share of new jobs being created in America during this so-called recovery,” said Robert Reich, former labor secretary under President Clinton and author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future".

The National Restaurant Association’s Riehle pointed out that nine out of 10 restaurant managers started out in hourly positions in the restaurant industry. And, he added, there are many jobs beyond lower-paying kitchen gigs, especially among large restaurant chains.

“Multi-unit restaurant operators that started in the 1960s and 1970s are global operations that have employment across the full spectrum, ranging form dish washers to chairman of the board, to accounting and IT functions,” he explained.

But the bulk of jobs, everyone acknowledged, are those most closely tied to the food and drinks.

Here’s a rundown from the BLS of the top food service jobs, what they pay, and the experience needed to land such positions:

• Chefs and Head Cooks: Median pay for these jobs is $40,630 annually or $19.53 an hour; and most of these jobs require a high school diploma or equivalent. You’ll need one to five years of experience. The outlook for these positions, about 100,000 total nationally, aren’t as good as lower-wage, lower-skilled jobs in the sector. Projections for these jobs show a 1 percent dip through 2020. “Although overall job opportunities are expected to be good, competition is expected to be high for jobs at upscale restaurants, hotels, and casinos, where the pay tends to be greater,” the BLS study found.
• Cooks: While the cooks don’t get the glory when it comes to a restaurant kitchen, they do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to preparing food. But these jobs come with a median pay of $20,260 a year, or $9.74 an hour. Job opportunities for cooks will jump 8 percent through 2020, adding 161,800 jobs to the 2 million cooks toiling away over hot stoves across the country.
• Waiters and Waitresses: You don’t need a high school diploma to land a job waiting tables, but the pay isn’t great. Median pay is $18,330 annually, or $8.81 per hour, and that's the total including tips. Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. This job is expected to jump 9 percent through 2020, creating 195,900 new jobs. Today, there are about 2.3 million waiters and waitresses working in the United States, and most of the jobs are part time.
• Bartenders: While these jobs are considered among the glitziest in the restaurant world, they don’t come with a glitzy paycheck. Median pay, including tips, is $18,680 a year, or $8.98 an hour, and many offer on-the-job training. But, according the BLS, “Those who wish to work at more upscale establishments usually need previous work experience or vocational training.”

Amy Sancetta / AP

A help-wanted sign displays outside the Mayfield Drive-In movie theater in Chardon, Ohio.

Friday’s jobs data helped confirm that the worst of the recession-related layoffs have eased. Until employers begin shifting back to a solid pace of new hiring, though, most Americans will still have a hard time finding a new job.

The Labor Department said Friday that U.S. employers added 227,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, while the unemployment rate held steady at a three-year low of 8.3 percent as more people, hopeful they would find work, returned to the labor force.

The report marks the first time since early 2011 that payrolls have grown by more than 200,000 for three months in a row. And those months were even better than previously reported, after the government revised the December and January numbers to show an additional 61,000 jobs were created.

Much of the improvement is coming as an historic wave of layoffs - one that lingered well after the recession ended in 2009 - appears to have finally abated.

"All the good numbers that we're getting are largely because of a reduction in the number of layoffs," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "We really have not yet seen a significant pick-up in hiring; the level of hiring is still very, very low. As soon as businesses starts to engage in hiring in a more normal way, I really think we can start getting monthly job numbers of 300,000 or 350,000."

The pace of layoffs has eased from both public and private employers. From a peak of 326,000 in February 2009, so-called "mass layoffs" by private employers tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics fell to 129,000 in January, according to a separate  report. That's a level not seen since shortly after the recession began at the end of 2007.

Layoffs of government workers - especially at the state and local level - have also slowed. But that may be only temporary, according to Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial.

"We're not done," she said. "It's shifting from the state and local sector, which aside from a few states, have already put their fiscal houses in order and made a lot of the cuts already. That's going to be abating. On the other side of it, though, we've got federal cuts coming. So we're in a bit of a sweet spot here with government (employment)."

Private employers, meanwhile are adding jobs only where they have to. Much of that is in the form of converting temporary workers to full-time hires. Even those hires are very selective, according to Jeff Joerres, CEO of Manpower, a national employment placement firm.

"Companies are saying 'I'm going to hire but I'm going get this person as productive as possible,'" he said. "There's much more precision in hiring. We're not sure that's going to go away until we get really robust demand. And we don't see that any time soon."

Most economists see overall growth in the economy slowing during the first half of this year. A recent survey by the National Association for Business Economics, a group of private economists, predicted gross domestic product would drop from its 3.0 percent pace in the fourth quarter of last year to 2.0 percent in the first quarter of 2012, gradually picking up to 2.4 percent in the second quarter.

That slowdown could bring another soft patch to the job market.

"Maybe we're starting a new trend, but I've seen this movie before," said Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price. "Just a year ago we had some strong employment gains at the turn of the year, then a pullback in the spring. It's tempting to lean toward the notion we're ramping up to faster job growth and staying there. But again, just look at a chart of job growth in the second half of 2010 and into the early months of last year, and then see how we dropped off very sharply in the spring."

Recession hangover
Until the pace of hiring sees a sustained pickup, the labor market will continue to suffer from one of the worse recession hangovers in decades. Few economists expect the unemployment rate to fall below 8 percent this year. A broader measure of overall health in the job market - the percentage of the total population with a job - is stuck at lowest level in nearly 30 years. Just 58.5 percent of Americans over the age of 16 were employed in February, in part because so many discouraged workers, adult students and early retirees have left the pool of people counted in the official workforce.

Many of those without a job have been out of work far longer than in past recessions. The average length of unemployment remained stuck at 40 weeks February, by far the highest level since the government began tracking the duration of unemployment in 1948. That's nearly twice as long as peak levels seen after the last three recessions.

The health of the job market is also very uneven. In 65 of the 373 metropolitan labor markets tracked by the government, the jobless rate is 20 percent or higher. Widespread job losses in the construction and real estate industries will take years to make up.

"In a normal recovery, about a quarter or a third of it is coming from construction and housing," said University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee. "We've still got five million vacant homes, so that's probably still going to remain relatively weak."

The U.S. economy also remains vulnerable to outside shocks - from a further surges in oil prices to a deeper recession in Europe or a slowdown in China. If those disruptions are relatively minor, most economists expect the pace of job growth to continue a slow, steady course.

"If there's a bigger disruption, companies are always ready to be agile," said Manpower's Joerres. "It's very different than previous times. They can hit that index finger and turn hiring off in 36 hours. We wouldn't have seen that in 2008 and wouldn't have seen that prior to that as well."

Related stories:

Here's where the gap is widest between rich, poor

Why employment picture may be too good to be true

General Motors Thursday became the latest American employer to report that the deepening economic slowdown in Europe has begun to take a toll on corporate profits. And Europe's economy is likely to get worse before it gets better, according to some analysts.

As the United States and China shake off the lingering effects of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the global economy faces the risk that the recovery could be derailed by European problems worsened by political divisions that have divided the Continent for a century or more.

Though American employers recently have begun picking up the pace of hiring at home, the profit slowdown abroad could put a damper on further job creation.

So far, the U.S. economy and financial markets have largely shrugged off the ongoing debt crisis in Europe. The broad Standard & Poor's 500 is up more than 20 percent since last fall, and the widely followed Dow Jones industrial average is within hailing distance of the key 13,000 level.

But some observers believe the European deadlock may be entering a new, and much more dangerous, phase. 

"Just because things were looking OK at the end of last year doesn't mean that they will continue to look OK," said Richard Cookson, chief investment officer of Citi Private Bank. "Our best guess is that conditions will continue to deteriorate. This is going to be unpleasant, to put it mildly."

General Motors reported flat earnings for the fourth quarter despite rising sales, largely because of a $600 million loss from its European operations.  Rival Ford also has reported a slowdown  in European car sales. European officials said Thursday that eurozone auto sales there fell 13 percent in January from a year earlier as jittery consumers postponed buying new cars.

U.S. carmakers aren't the only ones reporting trouble on the European front. General Electric last month warned analysts that while the global conglomerate sees continued growth prospects in emerging markets from China to South America, the company expects its profits in Europe will be hurt by the recession there.  In recent weeks, Tiffany, 3M, Alcoa and Baxter International also reported that the European slowdown has begin to hit the bottom line.

While European imports of goods and services represent less than 3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, the companies in the S&P 500 count on the eurozone for 14 percent of their profits. U.S. foreign direct investment in Europe totaled nearly $2 trillion at the end of 2009, compared to less than $50 billion that U.S. companies have invested in China, according to the Congressional Research Service.

On Thursday, Treasury Undersecretary Lael Brainard told the Senate Banking Committee that the U.S. economic stake in Europe is "immense" and said that while the U.S. recovery has strengthened recently, it remained vulnerable to a potential worsening of conditions in Europe.

"Our banking system still has material exposure to the core of Europe and to the broader banking system, which could be impacted if financial stress were to broaden in Europe," Brainard said.

After more than a year of political squabbling over how to bail out its debt-laden southern members, the European Union is sliding into recession. Economic data released Wednesday showed the eurozone GDP shrank in the fourth quarter as Germany, the continent's economic flywheel, shifted into reverse. The contraction accelerated in hard-hit Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

Since 2007, the Greek economy has shrunk by 20 percent as repeated government spending cuts have stifled economic growth, further shrinking the country's tax base and fueling a downward spiral.  

Despite a series of repeated promises and announced solutions, European politicians continue to squabble over a plan to head off a default by Greece on its debt. After widespread rioting over the weekend in Athens, German finance officials expressed doubts that Greek officials could hold to their promises to extend deep cuts in spending imposed as a condition of a $171 billion lifeline to head off a March 20 default. A new deadline for an agreement has been set for Monday.

"Even if an agreement on the package can be reached next week, there are plenty of other stumbling blocks that will need to be overcome to prevent a disorderly default in March," said Ben May, senior economist with Capital Economics.

For nearly a year, European banks have been bracing for the prospect of heavy losses stemming from Greece. As bonds issued by Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy have lost value, bankers have been raising capital to offset the anticipated losses. In December, European Central bankers sought to cushion the blow by flooding the banking system with cheap money and easier loan terms.

But those moves may not have gone far enough. On Thursday, credit rater Moody's warned that it may downgrade 17 banks and 114 European financial institutions as the impact of the debt crisis spreads.

The warning followed the late Monday announcement that Moody's had cut the ratings of Italy, Portugal and Spain. Though France, Britain and Austria retained their top credit scores, Moody's also cut their outlooks to "negative" from "stable." The agency said the downgrades were based on both the uncertainty about outcome of the Greek bailout squabble and the widening eurozone recession.

The Greek government still has a few weeks left to strike a deal before a $19 billion bond payment comes due March 20. But some analysts think the government has already run out of time to renegotiate those payment terms with bondholders, who would need several weeks to review the complex set of agreements.

It's far from clear just how badly a Greek default would rock the European economy and global financial system. With more than a year to prepare for the possible outcome, investors and bankers have had time to hedge those potential losses. But 

even if the direct impact is relatively muted, a default would almost certainly force Greece to exit the European Union and plunge the country deeper into a depression as creditors fled and government spending collapsed.

A Greek default would also reverberate loudly in other southern European countries. If the Athens government is unable to negotiate a lifeline with its European neighbors, those countries could face similar long odds securing financial assistance

"The biggest cost of a Greek bankruptcy will be the emergence of the worm of doubt, our new friend," said Carl Weinberg, Chief Economist, High Frequency Economics. "If Euroland governments cannot get their acts together to save little old Greece, they probably will not be able to bail out other nations."

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

U.S. Postal Service worker Magda Aguirre places mail into a sorting machine at the U.S. Post Office sort center in San Francisco, Calif., last August.

Staff reductions. Job cuts. Layoffs. Right-sizing. Restructuring.

Euphemisms for firing workers have become painfully commonplace in recent years, as all sorts of employers have eliminated jobs to deal with the recession and weak economic recovery.

Plenty of big companies have led the way with massive layoffs, but the organization that has announced the largest reductions over the past five years may surprise you. It’s Uncle Sam.

Msnbc.com asked outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas to compile a list of the employers that have publicly announced the most job cuts from the beginning of 2007 through the end of 2011. Challenger relies on public announcements and news reports to compile its data and checks those against government-mandated layoff notices when available.

The U.S. government topped the list with 112,800 job cuts announced over the past five years, mainly at the U.S. Postal Service and in the defense sector.

The government tops the list in part because it’s the nation’s largest employer. The government employed about 2.8 million workers as of January, so the announced job cuts would have amounted to only about 4 percent of the total.

Despite those announced job cuts, total federal employment is about the same today as it was in 2007. Employment did increase in 2010 and then fell again, possibly a result of the decennial census.

At the Postal Service, the story is different. Postal Service employment has dropped by 148,000 over five years to the current  618,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Post Office’s woes come down to two words:

“The Internet,” said Mike Montgomery, an economist with IHS Global Insight who watches employment trends closely.

Thanks to the Web, billions of bills, letters and other correspondence that once flowed through the Postal Service are now being sent electronically, leading to billions of dollars in losses. The post office has said the job cuts have helped save some money.

The Department of Defense also is girding for big changes as it works to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense spending may be cut by as much as $487 billion over 10 years.

Even if you don’t want to work for the Post Office or Defense Department, the prospect of making a career with the federal government may be waning. The Labor Department projects that federal government employment will shrink by 372,000 jobs by 2020.

“There aren’t a lot of places where either Congress or the White House wants to spend more money on payroll,” said Montgomery, of IHS Global Insight,.

That’s a remarkable turnaround from past years, said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

“Government was the last bastion of job security,” he said.

After the government, General Motors is No. 2 on the list of employers that have announced the most job cuts in the past five years, according to Challenger.

Note: The number of job cuts announced is rarely the same as the number of jobs actually eliminated. Companies may end up firing workers in some divisions but hiring workers elsewhere. Fortunes shift, and plans can change. But announced job cuts usually lead to real pain.

Here are the rest of the top 10:

2. General Motors

Announced job cuts: 112,700

Employees: 202,000 employees as of December 31, 2010

General Motors filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, after years of problems at the giant automaker.

Aided by the government, it emerged quickly from bankruptcy and has since staged a recovery and return to profitability.

General Motors had about 280,000 employees as of December 2006, and employment had fallen to 196,000 by March of 2010, according to spokesman Jay Cooney.

As the company's fortunes have improved, it’s started adding workers again. Cooney said GM added 6,000 jobs through the end of 2010, all in the United States. The company continued to add jobs in 2011, he said, but he wasn’t able to provide a firm number.

3. Citigroup

Job cuts announced: 96,500

Employees: 260,000 as of December 2010

As early as 2007, Citigroup was hit hard by the housing bust and the credit crisis. The banking giant received $45 billion in government aid in late 2008, as part of the government bailout plan, and the government later took a stake in the bank. The Treasury Department has since sold all shares, making a profit on the deal.

At its height in late 2007, Citigroup employed 375,000 people, spokeswoman Shannon Bell said. The company’s workforce has fallen by more than 100,000 as it has shed some businesses and lost staff through layoffs and attrition.

Citigroup continues to struggle amid slow growth in the United States and economic problems abroad.

4. Hewlett-Packard Co.

Announced job cuts: 45,300

Employees: 349,600 as of Oct. 31, 2011

Technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co. had 172,000 employees as of October 2007, but several big acquisitions pushed employment up substantially. The company had approximately 320,000 employees in late 2008, when it announced plans to eliminate about 24,600 workers, or 7.5 percent of its workforce, following its acquisition of EDS.

Still, the company’s total employment has risen in recent years. HP spokesman Michael Thacker said that’s partly because of acquisitions and partly because of investments in emerging fields, such as cloud computing.

Thacker declined to comment on the total number of layoffs provided to msnbc.com by Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

5. Circuit City Stores

Announced job cuts: 41,305

Employees: 0

After struggling for years, electronics retailer Circuit City finally closed its doors for good in 2009. The bankruptcy liquidation resulted in hundreds of retail locations closing and all the retailer’s employees losing their jobs.

Another company, Systemax, later bought the rights to Circuit City’s website and brand name. A spokesman with Systemax’s public relations firm, Brainerd Communicators, said the company had no employees left when Systemax purchased the intellectual property.

6. Bank of America

Announced job cuts: 41,000

Employment: 281,791 as of Dec. 31, 2011

Bank of America was among the many companies to receive government bailout funds following the 2008 financial crisis. The company was able to repay the $45 billion it owed taxpayers in 2009, but it has continued to struggle.

Bank of America, which acquired both mortgage lender Countrywide Financial and wealth management firm Merrill Lynch in recent years, has been slashing jobs and costs in an effort to rein in its unwieldy size. Last fall, the company said it planned to cut up to 30,000 positions over the next several years.

Bank of America had 203,425 employees as of Dec. 31, 2006, and that number swelled to 288,128 by the end of 2010 in large part because of acquisitions. It has since fallen somewhat.

7. Merck & Co.

Job cuts announced: 36,500

Employees: 86,000 as of Dec. 31, 2011

Pharmaceutical giant Merck bought Schering-Plough in 2009 in a deal that was aimed at helping boost its business but also led to job cuts.

The maker of Gardasil and other drugs has said it expects its restructuring program, which includes cost-cutting and staff reduction, to continue until 2015.

The combined companies had 100,000 workers at the time of the 2009 merger, spokesman Ron Rogers said. Rogers added that Merck has been cutting jobs in some areas of the business while boosting employment in others.

8. Merrill Lynch

Job cuts announced: 35,000

Employees: Not available -- acquired by Bank of America

Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. At the time, Bank of America said it expected to cut around 35,000 jobs.

9. Pfizer

Job cuts announced: 33,025

Employees: 103,700 as of Dec. 31, 2011

Pfizer, maker of blockbuster drugs such as Viagra and Lipitor, acquired pharmaceutical company Wyeth in 2009. The deal brought Pfizer valuable assets such as Wyeth’s Prevnar vaccine but also led to more job cuts at the combined companies.

In its 2010 annual report, the company said cost-cutting initiatives that started in 2005 are expected to reduce the company’s workforce by about 49,000 employees, mainly in manufacturing, sales and research. The company said 36,400 jobs had been cut by Dec. 31, 2010.

A spokeswoman said by email that the company had about 86,600 employees as of Dec. 31, 2007, and that number swelled to 130,000 by January 2009, when Pfizer acquired Wyeth.

It has since fallen by about 27,000. The company declined to comment further.

10. Chrysler

Job cuts announced: 26,500

Employees: 57,160 as of January 2012

Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009 with a plan to quickly emerge from bankruptcy court free of debt and ready to make some hard decisions to save its floundering auto business.

The plan included an alliance with Fiat and a stringent plan to cut some car models and revitalize others.

Many expected it to be an uphill battle. But over the past two years, Chrysler has seen its fortunes improve substantially and  recently handed out its first profit-sharing checks in years.

Chrysler had 82,284 employees as of January 2007, and that figure had fallen to 47,784 by June of 2009. Spokesman Michael Palese said in an email that the company has added about 10,000 employees since then as business has improved.

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The U.S. economy is like a flywheel: It takes a lot to get it going. Once it starts moving, it can pick up speed pretty quickly. 

To see why, look no further than Friday’s jobs report, which offered convincing evidence that the U.S. recovery is finally gaining momentum.

After months of subpar growth in their payrolls, American companies added 243,000 new jobs in January, considerably more than the 150,000 that forecasters expected. That drove the unemployment rate down from 8.5 percent in December to 8.3 percent, extending a rapid decline from 9.1 percent last August.

Since last fall, a series of economic reports have pointed to gradual improvement. But the January employment report tore the cover off the ball.

“It’s very unusual to get an unambiguous jobs report; usually you have a lot of cross currents in the data,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “This is unambiguous. Everything is good.”

The job gains were spread across the economy, from the leisure and hospitality industry, which added 44,000 jobs, to 11,000 new hires by retailers. The battered construction industry added 21,000 jobs, the second straight monthly gain, helped in part by unseasonably warm weather this winter.

The data also included heartening signs of more hiring to come. Employers added more temporary staff and increased the hours of their existing workers. That’s typically a sign that demand has picked up; once companies are convinced the uptick isn’t fleeting, they tend to add more full-time jobs.

January’s drop in the jobless rate also came as more people began looking for work. That’s especially encouraging because, for the rate to go down, a larger number had to have found work.

Many economists have warned that the jobless rate could rise again this year as “discouraged” workers resumed their job hunt; until they land a position, they’re counted as unemployed, which tends to boost the jobless rate until they get hired. That didn't happen in January, which means jobs are being created even faster than discouraged workers are returning to the labor force.

Forecasters were surprised by just how fast the employment data have improved; as of last month, the jobless rate has fallen by eight-tenths of a point in just five months.

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“If you go back at look at the cycle after the '90-91 recession and the ‘01 recession, there was this period of no job growth, and then all of sudden it was a like a light switch went on in corporate America,” said Zandi. “It almost feels like that with this report.”

Though the report was good news by itself, the monthly employment data confirmed separate reports showing the U.S. economy getting back on its feet after a long, slow slog.

The economy’s gradual acceleration showed up in a separate report Friday showing ongoing strength in U.S. manufacturing. The Commerce Department said factory orders rose 1.1 percent in December, supported by a rebound in orders for heavy machinery, after a 2.2 percent gain in November. For the year, total orders were up 12.1 percent following a gain of 12.9 percent in 2010, the government reported Friday. Orders had plunged 22.1 percent in the 2009, the year the recession ended.  

Some of that surge in December came as companies rushed to place orders before an investment tax credit expired at the end of last year. But the spending on new equipment is expected to continue as companies seek to boost output by upgrading equipment and continuing to look for ways to use technology to boost productivity.

Since the 2007 recession ended, companies have been relying heavily on automation to boost the productivity of their existing workforce to meet rising demand. But the recent reports on productivity show those gains fading, indicating that employers may be exhausting their output gains available from automation, forcing them to add to payrolls.         

Service companies grew at the fastest pace in 11 months in January as companies hired more workers to keep up with rising demand. The Institute for Supply Management says its index of non-manufacturing activity jumped to 56.8 percent in January from 53 percent in December. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion. The survey tracks hotels, retailers, financial services firms and construction companies.

As hiring picks up, the pace of layoffs appears to be easing. Initial claims for unemployment insurance have been trending lower. One reason may be that the wave of government job cuts that followed the 2007 recession appears to be slowing. Friday’s jobs report showed that  government employment leveled off in January after falling by 276,000 jobs over the past 12 months.

State and local finances have begun to turn around as the improvement in the overall job market and the economy has boosted incomes and has helped sales tax receipts to recover. And though home prices continue falling in many parts of the country, the rapid drop in local property tax receipts has begun to ease.

“The picture has been slices of better news just about everywhere,” said Robert Brusca, chief economist at FAO Economics. “All of this is consistent with improvement.”

The stock market has already begun placing bets that strong growth is taking hold; the Standard & Poor's 500 index has risen 6.5 percent in  the last four weeks. Stock prices jumped sharply on Friday’s jobs data; the S&P 500 index added another 1.3 percent, on track for its fifth straight weekly gain.

The surprise drop in the unemployment rate bodes well for the Obama administration, too. The president faces a tough re-election campaign with some 12.8 million Americans still out of work and another 11 million who are working part-time but want a full-time job, or who have given up looking. When those workers are accounted for, the so-called "underemployment" in January stood at 15.1 percent, down just a tenth of a percentage point from December.

But the “headline” jobless rate has fallen to the lowest since February 2009, a month after Obama took office. Economists who have studied the link between the job market and presidential elections say the overall level of unemployment matters less than the pace of improvement in the job market and broader economy.

"There are still far too many Americans who need a job ... but the economy is growing stronger. The recovery is speeding up. And we need to do everything in our power to keep it going," Obama said Friday.

Still, the White House can expect continued withering criticism of its record as the campaign gathers momentum through November. Republican House Majority whip Kevin McCarthy of California Friday called the jobs data “welcome numbers” but said employment gains aren’t coming fast enough.

“There is a better way of going about doing this,” he said. “You've got a Senate sitting on 27 bills out of 30 that would help job creation. So there's a lot of work to be done.”

Most economists were surprised by the jobs data, prompting some to nudge their growth forecast higher for 2012.

But others noted that significant obstacles remain before the U.S. economy gets back up to cruising speed. The housing market remains mired in its worst recession since the 1930s; falling home prices continue to eat into household wealth. The ongoing debt crisis in Europe has forced widespread spending cutbacks that have thrown much of the continent into recession. It’s not at all clear what impact a deeper European recession would have on U.S. growth

“We’re reluctant to get too carried away just yet,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “The economy began both 2010 and 2011 strongly before fading later in each year. As the unwinding of the previous fiscal stimulus starts to bite and as global demand falters, something similar may be on the cards this year.”

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Bureau of Labor Statistics

We already know that one key way to make more money and stay employed is to get more education.

Now a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics adds another piece of evidence that it usually pays off, literally, to shoot for that master’s degree or higher.

The BLS this week released a detailed forecast for how it expects the job market to change in the current decade (the '10s?).

Among the findings: Jobs that require some sort of postsecondary degree for entry are expected to grow at the fastest clip from 2010 to 2020.

The report found that jobs that require a masters’ degree or more are projected to grow by 21.7 percent over that decade, to a little more than 2.4 million total jobs, compared with just 12.2 percent growth in jobs that require only a high school diploma.

The number of jobs that require a doctoral or professional degree will grow by 19.9 percent, to nearly 5.3 million, while the number that require a college degree is expected to grow 16.5 percent to a total of 25.8 million.

Despite the higher rate of growth, there will still be fewer total jobs requiring those advanced degrees, and many more that just require a high school degree.

The BLS predicts that by 2020 about 69.7 million jobs, or nearly 43 percent of the total, will only require a high school diploma to get in the door.

Of course, plenty of people who are college educated are working as baristas, store managers and other positions that may not require a college degree.

Overall, the Labor Department expects about 20.5 million new jobs to be created between 2010 and 2020 as the job market picks up steam after a deep recession and weak early recovery. Last year the economy created about 1.6 million new jobs, according to preliminary figures.

Many of the net new jobs to be added in coming years will be in health care and social assistance fields, reflecting our aging population and increased medical needs.

Other industries expected to see big job growth will be playing catch-up from the recession. For example, the outlook calls for about 1.8 million new construction jobs to be created in coming years, making it one of the sectors with the highest job growth. But the BLS notes that even if the projections are correct and construction employment reaches nearly 7.4 million, that will be fewer jobs than before the recession began in 2007.

Related:

Here's where the jobs will (and won't) be in 2020

The majors with the best job prospects

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Financially troubled American Airlines on Wednesday announced it's looking to cut 13,000 employees and terminate the company’s defined pension plan as part of its restructuring strategy to emerge from bankruptcy and return to profitability.

“A difficult outcome of the restructuring process is our need to reduce our workforce to better align with a more efficient operation,” said Bruce Hicks, a company spokesman. 

The deepest cuts will come from fleet services and mechanics for a total of 8,000, followed by flight attendants with 2,300 proposed reductions; management with 1,400 and pilots with 400. American Airlines and American Eagle Airlines, both subsidiaries of AMR Corporation, employ a total of 88,000 full and part time employees, including about 68,000 workers covered by unions. 

Representatives of the Allied Pilots Association, Transport Workers Union, and Association of Professional Flight Attendants met with company officials in Dallas earlier on Wednesday to hear the restructuring plan.

Reached before details emerged about the proposal, Sam Mayer, a long-time American pilot who sits on the union's communication committee, said, "just because they ask for something today doesn't mean they're going to get it.”

AMR has been operating under bankruptcy protection since November and is in negotiations with its unions over cost-cutting measures. AMR reported a loss of $904 million in December alone.

In a letter to employees today, AMR CEO Tom Horton spelled out the sacrifices and investments the company is proposing including upgrading the airline’s infrastructure by investing about $2 billion per year in aircraft and $1 billion in network and product improvements.

As for belt tightening, Horton expects $2 billion in cost savings from “restructuring debt and leases, grounding older planes, improving supplier contracts and other initiatives, and necessary employee-related changes.”

The company is seeking “$1.25 billion in permanent annual cost reductions from all employee groups,” Jeff Brundage, American’s senior vice president of human resources told employees in an email today.

In addition to employee cuts, he wrote, the company will:

• “Seek court approval to terminate our defined benefit pension plans. If terminated, the plans would be replaced with a 401(k) plan with a company match.”
• “Seek to discontinue company-subsidized retiree medical coverage for current employees, but will offer access to these plans if employees choose to pay for them.”

Such changes, he acknowledged, will require “decisive action, difficult changes, and an unwavering commitment to our future success.”

It’s unclear how abiding American’s employees will be.

The company has had a rocky history when it comes to worker-management relations, and it’s unclear how much sway the newly minted CEO Horton will have getting employees to buy in.

Horton took the job after Gerard Arpey resigned late last year over objections to the bankruptcy filing. Arpey had spent years trying to turn the company around, and also mend fences with American’s unions that felt slighted by the CEO who had the job before him, Don Carty.

Before Arpey came on board in 2004, the company’s management got employees to agree to nearly $2 billion in wage and benefits cuts, but at the same time funding a pension trust and paying out lucrative bonuses to the company’s top executives, including Carty.

Now they go to the negotiating table yet again.

“The company makes their proposal and we begin negotiating with them,” Mayer maintained. “That's what will happen with all three unions."

 For other major airlines that went through bankruptcy, he continued, “the final agreement looked nothing like the original proposal by management.” 

Updated at 2:29 p.m. ET

American Airlines officials were meeting with their three major unions amid reports that the bankrupt airline company is making plans to eliminate up to 15,000 jobs.

Representatives of the Allied Pilots Association, Transport Workers Union, and Association of Professional Flight Attendants were meeting with company officials in Dallas, said Sam Mayer, a long-time American pilot who sits on the union's communication committee. The three unions represent about 54,000 total employees.

"Right now we have no idea what they're going to be asking for as far as pay cuts, work rules, job cuts, furloughs, etc.," Mayer said.

Reuters, quoting an unnamed source who was at the meeting, reported that AMR Chief Executive Tom Horton told the unions, "We will end this journey with many fewer people."

Horton also said the airline intends to emerge as an independent company, according to one of the sources who attended the meeting with the unions, Reuters reported.

American Airlines did not immediately return a call requesting comment.

Mayer added that "just because they ask for something today doesn't mean they're going to get it. The company makes their proposal and we begin negotiating with them. That's what will happen with all three unions."

For other major airlines that wen through bankruptcy, he continued, "the final agreement looked nothing like the original proposal by management."

AMR has been operating under bankruptcy protection since November and is in negotiations with its unions over cost-cutting measures.

Bloomberg, citing industry analysts, reported that American was preparing to offer contracts that would eliminate 10,000 to 15,00 jobs and freeze pensions.

American employs about 74,000 full- and part-time workers plus 14,000 at regional carrier American Eagle, Bloomberg said.

AMR reported a loss  of $904 million in December alone.

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A healthy pickup in production of manufactured goods last month added to the gathering momentum for the U.S. economy. So far, that growth has done little to help the job prospects for the millions of factory workers still sidelined by the 2007 recession.

U.S. factories continued to ramp up production of manufactured goods in December as stronger demand for business equipment and vehicles followed other signs that the economic recovery gained steam in the last three months of 2011. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that its widely followed manufacturing index rose by 0.9 percent in December, the biggest gain in a year. The overall output of the nation's factories, mines and utilities expanded by 0.4 percent in December; utilities cut back output as relatively warm weather held back demand for energy in much of the country.

The breadth of the gain was especially encouraging. Much of the boost in manufacturing came from orders for business equipment from small and medium-sized companies expand their operations to keep up with demand from their customers.

Consumers did their part too. U.S. automakers posted their best sales gains for the year in November and December: GM's December sales rose 5 percent, Ford's climbed 10 percent and Chrysler's surged 37 percent.

Car dealers say that trend is expected to continue as businesses and consumers replace worn-out cars and trucks they’ve been patching together since the recession. The average age of a vehicle on U.S. highways has hit a record 10.8 years; eventually those cars will need to be replaced. The National Automotive Dealers Association is forecasting sales of cars and light trucks will hit nearly 14 million this year, up from 12. 7 million in 2011 and 10.4 million in 2009 as the recession wound down.

Since then businesses have been boosting investment in new plants and equipment, partly because of tax breaks that allowed them to write off those costs more quickly. They've also moved to take advantage of record low interest rates to finance those purchases. Major U.S. banks reported a healthy pickup in demand for loans in the final quarter of 2011.

It remains to be seen whether U.S. manufacturers can keep the momentum going amid signs that the global economy may be headed for a slowdown. Much of the fresh demand for U.S. products is coming from overseas markets, where growth rates are higher than the roughly 2.5 percent domestic growth pace. While other recent data seem to show the pace of manufacturing holding up in the first weeks of 2012, most forecasters expect to see that slowing later this year.

“The concern is that with China’s latest GDP report showing slower growth and the eurozone slipping back into recession, the U.S. consumer could be the ‘last man standing’ for U.S. manufacturing this year," said Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics at IHS Global Insight. "This is not a bright prospect.”

Even if the pace of growth holds up, job prospects for factory workers haven’t kept pace with the pickup in factory output. Manufacturing output, as measured by the Fed’s industrial production index, has rebounded 14 percent since it bottomed at the end of recession. But employment levels for factory workers are up only 3 percent from the post-recession bottom.

Part of the reason is that big investment in new machines and computers has allowed factory owners to get more output from the same number of workers. But the workers getting rehired aren’t necessarily the same ones who were laid off during the recession. Employers who are investing in high-tech manufacturing equipment need more highly skilled workers to run those machines, but they’re also paying higher wages. Since the recession ended, the average wage for factory workers has risen by about 4 percent to $23.93 an hour.

Even as some 2.4 million factory workers remain sidelined by the recession, many employers complain they can’t find enough skilled workers to fill the new jobs they’re creating.

That’s forced many U.S. employers to shift high-tech factory jobs overseas. During the past decade, U.S companies moved more than a quarter of their high-tech manufacturing jobs overseas, according to a report this week from the National Science Board. The report found that U.S. high-tech factory jobs fell by 687,000, or 28 percent, between 2000 and 2010.

The shift followed a major investment in higher education in China and other Asian countries working to build on their low-cost, low-wage manufacturing bases.

"Over time, global science and technology capabilities have grown nowhere more so than Asia," according to the NSB report. "In most broad aspects of science and technology activities, the United States continues to maintain a position of leadership. But it has experienced a gradual erosion of its position in many specific areas."

Related story: U.S. economy losing its competitive edge