The legal industry added jobs for the third straight month in November, with 200 professionals joining the sector, according to a preliminary employment report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In another bit of good news for the industry, Friday’s report also contained revised data for October that adjusted the bureau’s original estimate that 600 new legal jobs were added that month upward to 1,000.
Factoring in the latest figures, the legal sector currently employs 1.12 million—5,800 more than it did in November 2011—and has seen a net gain of 6,900 jobs since the start of this year. March, when legal employers hired 3,200 people, is 2012′s strongest single month so far on the hiring front. Despite the year’s gains, the legal sector currently employs about 50,000 fewer people than it did before the recession, which officially began in December 2007.
