But there have been notable reductions in whole-year staffing totals.

In data recently released by the BLS, coal mining – which has its own records segment among other areas of industry such as logging, construction and manufacturing – showed 82,000 employed workers in both December 2012 and January 2013, the latest two months for which figures are available.

Employment in November was 83,000.

All figures are from its seasonally adjusted data.

There was a drop in year-on-year employment across coal mining versus January of last year, when there were a reported 89,700 employed miners.

By comparison, looking sequentially from December 2012 to last month, other types of mining (but excluding oil and gas) increased from 223,400 to 223,600 and support activities for mining rose from 393,400 to 396,300.

While the BLS report does not break down where areas of gains and losses are in the nation’s coalfields, it is no secret that the Appalachian region has been especially hard hit by production cutbacks and total mine closures that have left miners furloughed by the dozens and even hundreds.

Consol Energy, PBS Coals, Murray Energy, TECO Coal and Patriot Coal are just a handful of the companies that have given miners pinks slips and sent them to the unemployment line.

One of the most significant cuts occurred in September, when Alpha Natural Resources sliced 1200 miners from its payroll in a move to close eight of its operations in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania – about 9$ of its total workforce at the time.

Western mines were also not immune to losses. Western Minerals’ Decker mine in Montana laid off a portion of their staff in November, just weeks after Wyoming operation Wyodek, owned by Back Hills, laid off 14% of its workers.