From the BLS:
Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 290,000 in April, the unemployment rate edged up to 9.9 percent, and the labor force increased sharply, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in manufacturing, professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality. Federal government employment also rose, reflecting continued hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010.
This is an all around great report.
First, census hiring accounted for 66,000 jobs. That means overall job growth was over 200,000 -- a very good number.
We also learned the unemployment rate increased because more people are re-entering the workforce. People don't do that unless they see improvement of sorts. So the unemployment rate increase is actually a good sign.
Let's look closely at the data:
Total private hiring was up 231,00.
Good producing hiring was up 65,000
Private service producing jobs were up 166,000.
Here's some more good news:
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised from -14,000 to +39,000, and the change for March was revised from 162,000 to 230,000.
That means this is the second month in a row when job growth was over 200,000.
Here's a chart of establishment jobs growth from the report:
That is one good looking chart.
Simply put, this is one hell of a good report
6 comments:
"We also learned the unemployment rate increased because more people are re-entering the workforce, this time to the tune of 195,000."
From the household survey, it looks to me that the civilian labor force rose by 805K.. ?
Agreed that today's report is a welcome bit of news after yesterday's mayhem in the markets.
No, it's smoke and mirrors. The Government lies ... audit the fed ... numbers will be adjusted downward ... tax revenue declining ... second wave of mortgage defaults ... temporary census jobs ... socialism ... deficits.
(How am I doing? Did I miss any?)
Double dip recession... illegal immigrants taking all the jobs... tax increases on the middle class... that's all I can think of to add :)
I think I saw Robert Reich on TV this morning say this was in no way a V-shaped recovery. If adding more than half a million jobs in 2 months isn't good enough I don't know what is.
We would need growth sustained at this rate for 5 or 6 years to catch up, not to mention population growth.
Re: Unemployment and Educational Achievement
I'd like to see wage and unemployment data for "college graduate or higher" broken down by (type of) degree. I am a boomer with a liberal arts degree and no marketable job skills, currently unemployed, and earning $15K in a good year. At my most recent minimum wage job, almost half of two dozen employees had degrees.
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