The private sector added 268,000 jobs in April, according to seasonally adjusted figures announced this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Public-sector layoffs cut the net gain to 244,000. The gain was considerably higher than estimated by the consensus of experts in three surveys earlier in the week by Bloomberg, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. It was also larger than any increase in private-sector hiring since February 2006.
But the official unemployment rate—U3—(which is calculated from a different survey than the one determining the number of jobs gained or lost) rose to 9 percent. An alternative measure—U6—that includes the underemployed and a portion of discouraged workers rose to 15.9 percent.
The number of officially unemployed rose to 13.7 million. The labor force participation rate held steady at an historically low 64.2 percent, where it has remained for three months. The employment-population ratio fell to 58.4 percent. The number of Americans without work for six months or more fell to 5.8 million.
Revisions changed the job gains previously reported for February from 194,000 to 235,000, and for March from 216,000 to 221,000.
Contrasted with what happened in April 2009, today's report showed vast improvement. Two years ago, 660,000 jobs were shed; last year the gain was 277,000, about a fourth of which was Census hiring. At the current level of net job creation, it would take until November 2013 to reach the pre-recession level of employment as measured in December 2007.
Among other statistics in today's report:
• Number of people working part time involuntarily (who would prefer full-time work): 8.6 million
• Employment in the retail trade rose 57,000.
• Mining employment rose by 11,000
• Construction employment, which continues to struggle, was unchanged.
• Manufacturing employment rose 29,000.
• Employment in leisure and hospitality services rose 46,000.
• Employment in health care services rose 37,000
• Employment in professional and business services rose by 57,000.
• The average workweek for production and non-supervisory workers remained at 34.3 hours.
• The average hourly earnings for all employees on private
nonfarm payrolls increased by 3 cents, to $22.95.