April's National Jobs Count Shows Improvement

The nation added 223,000 jobs in April, an improvement upon March's weak job growth of 85,000. The unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.4 percent, as the number of unemployed persons held steady at 8.5 million.

Over the past three months, jobs have grown an average of 191,000 per month, a figure brought down by March's revised job growth. April's job growth was still less than the average monthly gain over the past 12 months, which came in at about 249,000 jobs per month.

According to State Employment Economist Nick Beleiciks, "The decent national job growth figures for April show continued underlying strength in the labor market.”

We'll find out if Oregon's employment growth follows the nation in the Oregon Employment Department's May 19 release. Visit the press release page for details.

Here are a few more figures from the release:

• The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons was down 880,000 over the year.
• Professional and business services led growth with a gain of 62,000 jobs in April. Employment in construction jumped 45,000.
• Average hourly earnings grew by 3 cents in April.