April Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on employment and unemployment for April (pdf summary available here.)

 

 

 

Unemployment Rate

• The unemployment rate held jumped up to 9.0% in April, from a level of 8.8% in March.  The unemployment rate was 8.9% in February and 9.0% in January. 
• The percentage and number of long-term unemployed (those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer) declined to 43.4% and 5.8 million in April, from 45.5% and 6.1 million in March. 
• The labor force was essentially unchanged in April (+15,000) and the labor force participation rate held steady at 64.2%. 
• There were 13.7 million unemployed persons in April, up from 13.5 million in March.

Payroll Employment

• Total non-farm payroll employment increased by 244,000 in April, following gains of 221,000 in March (revised from 216,000) and 225,000 in February (revised from 194,000).  

o   Private sector employment rose by 268,000 while government employment fell by 24,000.

o   The largest private sector employment gains came from retail trade (+57,000), professional and business services (+51,000), health care (+37,000), and leisure and hospitality (+46,000).

o   The average workweek was unchanged at 34.3 hours for all private nonfarm employees.

*Note on the discrepancy between 244,000 job gains and an increase in the unemployment rate:  Total payroll employment figures and the unemployment rate come from separate surveys.  Sometimes, an increase in the labor force can cause an uptick in the unemployment rate despite job gains as more workers seek jobs, but with the labor force rising by only 15,000 in April (gains of 130,000-140,000 are typical to keep up with population growth), the discrepancy is likely due to the different surveys and may be making up for the past months in which the unemployment rate fell significantly despite less significant job gains.

 Job Gains by Sector since the Official Start and Official End of the Recession