By the second quarter of last year, everybody’s jobs numbers were looking a bit better, with the notable exception of the largest firm size class, according to the 2Q 2009 Business Employment Dynamics data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) last week. The 2Q dynamic jobs numbers show that the evident beginnings of a turnaround we saw in the 1st quarter picked up steam, which also suggests that the job losses peaked with the 2.8 lost in the first quarter. In all, the economy lost a net 1.6 million jobs in the second quarter of 2009. As was the case in the first quarter data, the smaller the employer firm size class, the better they seemed to be doing.

The three smallest firm size classes, covering businesses with between 1 and 19 employees, were creating 9 new jobs for every 10 they lost, compared to creating 3 new jobs for every 4 lost in the previous quarter. Larger non-micro small businesses also showed improvement. Firms with between 20 and 99 employees had a 4/5 job gain/loss ratio and those with between 100 and 499 employees had a 3/4 job gain/loss ratio. On the other hand, larger firms continued to hemorrhage jobs without pause. Firms with between 500 and 999 employees were losing three jobs for every two they created, while the largest companies (over 1,000 employees) were still losing two jobs for every one they created. It is also worth noting that the first firms to raise their heads above the rim of the abyss were microbusiness employers, at least according to one fairly important metric. It will be interesting to see what role they continue to play in what is likely to be the ongoing recovery of the job market.