added about 140,000 jobs to their payrolls from July to November, while the natural resource and mining sector added 23,000 jobs in the same period, according to the data, which are adjusted for seasonal hiring patterns.WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy is sinking deeper into recession and companies are shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs, but the technology firms that Santa Fe, N.M., venture capitalist Trevor Loy invests in haven't stopped growing.
In fact, they're still adding to their payrolls, and they plan to continue doing so next year. The firms that Loy is funding are developing products such as state-of-the-art water purification systems and the next generation of surveying cameras for construction sites.
They're part of a select swath of the U.S. economy that's been protected — so far — from the bad economic weather. Also protected are schools and health care providers, information technology firms and green energy startups and other firms that, while not thriving, are at least still hiring.
"The end markets they serve are not shrinking," Loy said of some of the more than two-dozen companies he funds.
"The world's need for clean water, for clean energy, especially if there's infrastructure stimulus, will be growing, and companies working with new technology can act more quickly than traditional companies can."
Such startup firms also generally don't depend on the short-term financing that large companies need, which means they haven't been hit as hard by the shriveling of credit markets, Loy said.
U.S. Labor Department statistics show the growth is happening despite the overall negative numbers. The education and health care industries
Advertisement added about 140,000 jobs to their payrolls from July to November, while the natural resource and mining sector added 23,000 jobs in the same period, according to the data, which are adjusted for seasonal hiring patterns.
That contrasts with the loss of nearly 1.4 million nonfarm-sector jobs during those five months, with the heaviest losses hitting professional and business services, which includes accounting, temporary employment agencies and waste management, Labor Department figures show.
Education and health services historically have been resistant to economic downturns because they're often the last items on local government and household budgets to be axed, said Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution, a center-left policy research organization in Washington.
Demand for education also is growing as unemployed workers go back to school to beef up their resumes, Burtless said.
"State and local governments just think it's unavoidable to pay these education expenses," Burtless said. "And you're not going to postpone your surgery just because the economy's bad."
Also growing are jobs that help companies ramp up sales or cut employees to survive the bad economic times. For example, sales representatives, followed by account/customer support professionals, topped the list of 25 most recession-proof jobs compiled by the online employment search site Jobfox.
"In this environment, sales needs are huge," said Jobfox spokesman Barry Lawrence. "You can't get out of this situation unless you sell goods and services."
The big hope for job seekers is that the incoming Obama administration makes good on its promises to launch a multibillion-dollar economic stimulus and financial regulation plans that will spur new employment.
If that happens, Jobfox predicts big staffing boosts in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, construction management and compliance accounting, among other fields.