Friday, May 4, 2012

April's Jobs Report

Figures released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the economy added 115,000 jobs in April, marking the second straight disappointing month for that number. Although that's a lower rate of growth than most economists would have hoped for, the overall unemployment figure did tick down to 8.1 percent.

The April figure closely resembles the March one, which was initially reported as 120,000 - except the BLS also announced this morning that that number had been revised upward to 154,000. February's total of new jobs added was also revised upward, from 240,000 to 259,000. That softened the blow for the lower April number.

There was no individual sector with huge gains or losses of jobs; the changes were fairly anemic all around. The sectors adding the most jobs in April were professional and business services, which added 62,000, and retail, which added 29,000. The biggest loser was transportation and warehousing, which dropped 17,000 jobs.

No comments:

Post a Comment