The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released the December jobs report Friday and there was positive overall news, as the national unemployment rate fell from 7 to 6.7 percent.
Good news by itself, but it also served as a perfect time for the U.S. Travel Association to point out that the travel industry is just about fully recovered from this generation’s Great Recession.
“As of December 2013, the travel industry has made up 99 percent of the jobs lost during the Great Recession, compared to 86 percent of the rest of the economy, and is just 5,000 short of its prerecession level of employment,” said U.S. Travel Association senior vice president for economics and research David Huether.
Even better news: the industry is just 57,000 jobs shy of the record travel employment levels set in December 2000.
“With the travel industry on average creating 10,000 jobs per month in 2013, and with the growth of travel employment on an accelerating path, a new record level of employment in the travel industry is likely around mid-year in 2014,” Huether said.
It’s been a long climb back for the nation in general, but the travel industry has led the charge, as more and more consumers are finding that vacation travel is a necessity more than a luxury in their annual budget.
The travel industry accounted for 11,000 of the 74,000 jobs added to the economy created in December 2013, which adds up to 15 percent of the country’s gains.
While the economy as a whole created fewer new jobs during the past 12 months, the travel industry actually created 119,000 jobs for the year, 22,000 more jobs than the industry created in 2012, according to Huether.
The industry has been adding jobs at a 9 percent faster rate than the rest of the economy.