Employment Facts For April 2008

Bureau of Labor statistics

 Friday, May 2, 2008.


  THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION:  APRIL 2008
 Nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in

 April (-20,000), following job losses that totaled

 240,000 in the first 3 months of the year, the Bureau of Labor

 Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.

  The unem-ployment rate, at 5.0 percent, also was little 

changed in April.  Employment continued to decline in construction,

manufacturing, and retail trade, while jobs were added in health 

care and in professional and technical services.

Total Employment and the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

  Both total employment, at 146.3 million, and the

employment-population ratio, at 62.7 percent, were little

changed in April.  Over the month, the labor force 

participation rate held at 66.0 percent; it was the same 

rate a year earlier. 

  In April, the number of persons working part time for

economic reasons increased by 306,000 to 5.2 million.  

This level was 849,000 higher than in April 2007.  These individuals 

indicated that they were working part time because their hours

 had been cut back or because they were unable to find a
full-time job.

Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

 About 1.4 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force in April.  These 

individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked 

for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.  They were not
counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work

in the 4 weeks pre-ceding the survey.  Among the marginally 

attached, there were 412,000 discouraged workers in April, 

about the same as a year earlier.  Discouraged workers were not
currently looking for work specifically because they believed 

no jobs were available for them. The other 1.0 million persons

classified as marginally attached to the labor force in April

 cited reasons such as school attendance or family 
responsibilities. 

Technorati Tags: employment,economy,jobs,department of Labor