BLS Employment Situation Report: April 2012

According to the Labor
Department, total employment grew in the United States by 115,000
positions in April, the 19th straight month of job growth. The
unemployment rate dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 percent and from 10
percent two years earlier. Revisions to March’s numbers showed
153,000 jobs added, up from the 120,000 jobs previously reported.
The professional, managerial, and related occupations unemployment
rate, which reached as high as 5.5 percent in 2009, fell to 3.7
percent in April.

Retail trade added 29,000 positions, countering a loss of 32,000
positions reported last month. However, there has been no
significant trend in that sector, which has only added 19,000 jobs
in total since December. Professional and business services added
62,000 jobs in April, a third of which came from temporary staffing
firms. Architectural and engineering services and computer design
services both added a little more than 7,400 positions. The only
significant decline in the report was a loss of 16,600 positions in
transportation and warehousing, 11,000 of which were from transit
and ground passenger transportation.

The unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree and
higher fell from 4.2 to 4 percent in April, bringing that sector to
less than half the average unemployment rate of all other levels of
education, 9.1 percent. April, though, saw improving numbers for
those with lower levels of academic achievement. The unemployment
rate for those with a high school diploma, but no college, has
fallen from 9.7 to 7.9 percent from a year earlier, almost equal to
the 7.6 percent rate of unemployment among those with either some
college or an associate’s degree.

April’s employment report failed to meet the expectations of
economists, who were expecting more than 160,000 jobs to be added.
Yet, the report is more positive than some predicted following the
ADP report released in advance of the Labor Department’s numbers,
which showed a strong deceleration from March’s employment
growth.

The full report can be seen here:  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm
.