As the employment situation has remained over the last few months, the unemployment rate in April was 5.0 percent, the same as March. This percentage consists of a little over 7.9 million unemployed persons out of the employable populace. Among the various industries, professional and business services lead the job creation engine with highest number of recruits, followed by health care and financial activities.
As our job has been every month to bring to you, latest news from the unemployment world, let’s uncover “THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — APRIL 2016”, a monthly publication from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S Department of Labor to look at some interesting facts and figures collated in the survey.
Unemployment Rate Among Major Workers Groups
- Adult Men – 4.6%
- Adult Women – 4.5%
- Teenagers – 16.0%
There is negligible change in the rates for adult men and women. While the jobless rate for the former edged up by 0.1 percentage points, the latter saw a drop of the same value, compared to the rates last month. The percentage of unemployed teenagers continues to be high, with no sight of drop in the last few months.
Unemployment Rate Among Ethnic Groups
- Blacks – 8.0%
- Asians – 3.8%
- Whites – 4.3%
- Hispanics – 6.1%
While the jobless rates for Blacks and Asians dropped by a few percentage points, the other two ethnic groups recorded increase in the rates by a slight quantum from last month.
General Highlights
- The number of employable persons jobless for 27 weeks or more (long term unemployed) fell by 150,000 to stand at 2.1 million at the end of April 2016.
- 6.0 million persons were categorized as part time for economic reasons. This category has witnessed little change since November 2015.
- During this month, 1.7 million persons were tagged as marginally attached to the labor force. This category consists of people who had not looked for jobs during the last 4 weeks preceding the survey.
- In the category above, 568,000 persons were classified as discouraged workers since no job matching their background and skill sets were available. Over the year, the number of people falling in this category has declined by 188,000.
Employment Data in Various Industries (Top Highlights)
1) The bandwagon of top industries with highest number of job creations was led by Professional and business services, which added 65,000 jobs during this month. Over the last 12 months, this sector has averaged at 51,000 job additions every month.
- Management and Technical consulting services: +21,000 jobs
- Computer systems design and related services: +7,000 jobs
2) Health care came second with the creation of 44,000 new jobs during April. Over the year, this sector has added a whopping 502,000 jobs in its kitty.
- Hospitals: +23,000 jobs
- Ambulatory health care services: +19,000 jobs
3) As the case has been in the last two months, Mining continued to tumble by losing 7,000 jobs during this month. Post September 2015, this industry has seen a drop of 191,000 jobs. Support activities for mining registered the highest number of job losses in Mining.
Other Highlights
- The average workweek for all employees edged up by 0.1 hour to clock 34.5 hours during this month.
- The manufacturing workweek was 40.7 hours and the average overtime was 3.3 hours in April.
- The average hourly earnings for all employees was $25.53, up by 8 cents from March 2016.
- The average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees in the private sector was $21.45, up by 5 cents from last month.