Weekly Economic Digest - May 12, 2010

Job gains widespread across industries.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that employers added 290,000 jobs in April, the largest monthly increase in nonfarm payrolls in four years.  (See Chart) Data for February were revised to show gains (+39,000) and data for March were revised to show larger-than-initially-reported employment gains (+230,000).   Over the past four months, payrolls have grown by 573,000, with 520,000 jobs added in the last two months alone.  Private sector employers added 231,000 jobs in April, exceeding forecasters’ expectations.  The largest gains were in professional and business services (80,000), leisure and hospitality (45,000), manufacturing (44,000), education and health services (35,000).  Within professional and business services sector, temporary help employment grew for the seventh consecutive month, adding 26,200 employees in April.  The Federal government added 66,000 jobs last month as hiring of temporary employees for 2010 Census continued.  Additional data from the Establishment Survey revealed that the length of the average work week continued to expand.  Average weekly hours among production and non-supervisory workers climbed to 33.4 hours, up from October 2009’s low of 33.0 hours.

WORKERS RETURN TO LABOR MARKET.

In a sign that workers are feeling more optimistic about their prospects for finding employment, 805,000 workers entered the labor force last month, increasing the labor force participation rate 0.3 percentage points to 65.2 percent, according to BLS.  The labor force continued to expand during the first 10 months of the recession, before leveling off for several months.  Between May and December 2009, 1.9 million workers left the labor force, a 1.2 percent contraction.  Last month’s huge surge in labor force participation drove the unemployment rate up to 9.9 percent in April.  Prior to April, the unemployment rate had remained at 9.7 percent for three months; however, April’s rate is below the recession-high of 10.1 percent reached in October 2009.    Long-term unemployment remains high.  Last month, 45.9 percent of the 15.3 million unemployed persons had been out of work for at least 27 weeks.  Of those out of work for more than 27 weeks, 66 percent had been out of work for more than 52 weeks.  

Manufacturing sector continues expansion.