After a brief hiatus, the national unemployment rate was down by 0.1 percentage points to stand at 5.4% assuring of promising times ahead. During the month of April, a little over 223,000 jobs were added across sectors(non farm payroll employment). Industries such as Healthcare,Construction, Professional and Business services continued to moved upward in terms of job creation whereas Mining saw significant job losses during this month.
Let us briefly unravel key data points from the monthly news release from Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor titled “THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — APRIL 2015”
- The number of unemployed persons at the end of this month was 8.5 million, down by about 1.1 million over the year.
- The national unemployment rate was down considerably by 0.8 percent compared to the same month last year
Unemployment Rates Among Various Age Groups(Percentage)
- Teenagers(16 to 19 years) – 17.1
- Adult Men(Aged 20 years and above) – 5.0
- Adult Women(Aged 20 years and above) – 4.9
Unemployment Rates Among The Major Worker Groups(Percentage)
- White – 4.7
- Black or African American – 9.6
- Asian – 4.4
- Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity- 6.9
Data Points From Other Classifications
- The total number of unemployed persons in the long term unemployed category(jobless for 27 weeks or more) was at 2.5 million. The number of short term unemployed persons(less than 5 weeks) stood at 2.7 million during this month.
- The total numbers of part time workers(involuntary) for economic reasons was down massively by 880,000 year over year to stand at 6.6 million during the month of April 2015.
- A little over 2.1 million workers fell under the category of “Marginally attached to the labor force”. Though not considered an active part of the labor force, people in this category are available to work and looked up for a job sometime in the preceding 12 months prior to the survey.
- Belonging to the same category as above, the count of discouraged workers(persons not looking for a job as they believe no suitable jobs are available) was 756,000.
Data From Establishment Survey
Professional & Business Services inched up by adding 62,000 jobs in the month of April. This is nearly two fold increase from what averaged 35,000 in the last three months.
- Computer systems design and related services( +9,000)
- Business support services(+7,000)
- Management & technical consulting services(+6,000)
The Construction sector also added about 45,000 jobs during this month. Growing at a stable phase, it has added 280,000 jobs in the preceding 12 months.
- Speciality trade contractors(+41,000)
- Nonresidential building construction(-8,000)
Mining industry witnessed significant job losses that fell by 15,000, majority of which were concentrated in support activities.
- Support activity for mining(-10,000)
- Oil and gas extraction(-3,000)
Employment status in other major industries such as leisure and hospitality, government, manufacturing, wholesale trade and others did not witness major changes during the month of April 2015. The average work hours for all non farm employees on private rolls was 34.5 hours.