When the Department of Labor released the March jobless figures at the beginning of April, the results were disappointing for many. Initially, job gains were nearly 100,000, but the revised figures put them well below six figures – barely sufficient to keep up with the growth in the working-age population – even though the unemployment rate went down 0.2% to 4.5%.
It was a different story when the government released the numbers for April on May 5. Total nonfarm payroll went up by 211,000 jobs, three times the revised figure for a month earlier, and the gains were seen across the board. Overall the unemployment rate dropped only 0.1%, but that was enough to produce a U.S. unemployment rate that was the lowest since before the 2008-2009 recession – 4.4%.
The unemployment report revived speculation that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again in June.
April’s job gains were just short of the revised figures for February (232,000) and nearly triple the numbers for March (79,000).
Job gains were seen primarily in leisure and hospitality (which accounted for 55,000 new jobs), health care and social assistance, financial activities and mining. Employment in other industries was largely unchanged.
The number of unemployed people was virtually constant at 7.1 million. In general, unemployment rates by gender, age and race were mostly the same. The jobless rate for adult men dropped to 4.0%, but the unemployment rates for adult women (4.1%), teenagers (14.7%), whites (3.8%), blacks (7.9%), Asians (3.2%) and Hispanics (5.2%) were mostly unchanged.
“The nonfarm business sector is a subset of the domestic economy and excludes the economic activities of the following: general government, private households, nonprofit organizations serving individuals and farms,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The nonfarm business sector accounted for about 77% of the value of gross domestic product in 2000.”
The next unemployment report is scheduled for Friday, June 2.
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