The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) of the Department of Labor on Friday reported that the U.S. economy added 223,000 net (non farm payroll) jobs during April. This comes after a slowdown of jobs in the preceding month. The hourly wage in the private sector rose 3 cents for the month of April and the unemployment ebbed down marginally to 5.4 percent. Additionally, the BLS also revised the net job numbers for February from 264,000 to 266,000 and 126,000 to 85,000 for March.
April was also the 62nd consecutive month of net job growth in the private sector with about 12.3 million jobs added during the period. Out of 213,000 job gains in the private sector for the month, the largest additions came from the business and professional services, construction sector and health care and social assistance. Meantime, the mining sector that includes oil and natural gas posted some large job losses for the month. Gains were posted by the federal, state and local government segments in April with most of the new government jobs added by the local sector.
For the month, most of the other economic indicators were virtually unchanged. The number of (involuntary) part time workers, long term unemployed, the participation rate of civilian labor force, the number of workers marginally attached and number of workers discouraged are included in this. However, during April, the short term unemployed or those who remained unemployed for 5 weeks or less than that registered an increase from 241,000 to 2.7 million.
The work week for nonfarm jobs in the private sector remained steady on average at 34.5 hours while it dropped by 0.1 to 40.8 hours in the manufacturing sector. Meantime, the average of hourly wages for private sector nonfarm employees rose by 3 cents to $ 24.87. The average hourly wages rose by 2.2% in the past 12 months.
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