U.S. employment rose by 290,000 in April

This morning, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a gain of 290,000 nonfarm payroll jobs nationwide in April. Sizable employment gains occurred in professional and business services (+80,000 jobs); leisure and hospitality (+45,000); manufacturing (+44,000); and health care (+20,000).
The BLS also released revised nonfarm payroll numbers from previous months. Employment numbers for February were adjusted to show a gain of 39,000 jobs nationwide, and March employment was revised upward from a gain of 162,000 jobs to 230,000.

Even with four consecutive months of job growth, the national unemployment rate edged up to 9.9 percent in April from 9.7 percent in the three prior months. Among the unemployed, the number of re-entrants to the labor force rose by 195,000 from March to April. This increase in labor force participation is one factor that influenced the higher unemployment rate (we explored this relationship in detail in a previous post).

For more details, check out the complete press release (www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf).