The April jobs report offers promise for job-seekers, as U.S. employers add the largest
number of new hires in four years.
The Labor Department announced today that employers added almost 300,000 (290,000) jobs in
April, while also revising the march numbers to reveal that another 230,000 jobs were added
in March... with the employers now adding jobs in five of the last six months, further
signaling hope that a jobs turnaround has slowly begun.
We still have a long way to go to regain the millions of jobs lost in 2008 and 2009,
but the trend is encouraging.
In terms of industry sectors, manufacturing added 44,000 jobs (the biggest one-month gain in
more than a decade); construction added 14,000 jobs; retailers added more than 12,000 jobs;
leisure and hospitality industries added 45,000; temporary help services added more than 26,000 jobs
(and more than 300,000 new temp jobs have been added in the last seven months).
The one bit of bad news, which is also somewhat good news, is that the unemployment rate
increased to 9.9 percent -- which experts say is actually a sign that more job-seekers are
re-entering the job market.
