April Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on payroll employment and unemployment for April (pdf summary available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf). Highlights of the report:

Unemployment Rate

• The unemployment rate edged down to 8.1% in April, from 8.2% in March. 
• The number of long-term unemployed (those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer) was little changed at 5.1 million in April.  The percent of long-term unemployed was 41.3% in April. 
• The labor force declined by 342,000 in April, following a decline of 164,000 in March.  The labor force participation rate declined to 63.6% in April, from 63.8% in March.  April’s participation rate marks a new low not reached since December 1981.
• The number of unemployed persons was little changed at 12.5 million in April.

Payroll Employment

• Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 115,000 in April, following gains of 154,000 in March (revised upwards from 120,000) and 259,000 in February (revised upwards from 240,000).  April’s gain of 115,000 was lower than the expected gain of about 160,000 jobs and lower than the 130,000 necessary to keep pace with healthy labor force growth.
  • Private sector employment rose by 130,000 while government employment fell by 15,000.
  • The largest private sector employment gains came from professional and business services (+62,000), retail trade (+29,000), health care (+19,000), and manufacturing (+16,000).  Transportation and warehousing lost 17,000 jobs.
  • The average workweek for all private nonfarm employees was unchanged at 34.5 hours.