–April Fourth Positive Jobs Month in a Row, First Time in Recovery
–Payrolls +290K; Unemployment Rate Back Up to 9.9%

By Denny Gulino

WASHINGTON (MNI) – The upward bounce in April’s unemployment rate
masked several trends of improvement in the latest jobs numbers,
including a sharp expansion in the labor force reflecting current
widespread hiring.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday reported payrolls gained
290,000 slots in April, more than expected, as many of those who decided
to again look for jobs, 195,000, found them in the same month.

Upward revisions to the previous two months added a net 121,000
more jobs and turned February into a positive month, giving 2010 four
consecutive months of gains, the first time that’s happened since the
beginning of the recession in December 2007.

The unemployment rate’s increase in a month of recovery is “not
unprecedented,” the chief of the BLS unemployment section, Tom Nardone,
told Market News International in a pre-publication briefing.

The unemployment rate rose by 0.114 point in April to 9.863%, so
the March rate, at 9.749%, had been almost over the 9.8% mark already.

That rate is determined by the survey of households which measures
the size of the labor force and when the labor force expands faster than
jobs expand, the ratio of unemployment to the labor force can go up.
Although there’s no way to tell in the BLS statistics why people decide
to return to the job market, it is assumed they do so because of a
perception that jobs are more likely to be found.

And April confirmed that, with most of the expansion of the
labor force “coming in as employment,” Nardone said.

Sixty-six thousand of April’s gain in the survey of payroll
establishments were hires for Census 2010 and typically, Nardone said,
that hiring doesn’t peak until May when the bodies are most needed to
knock on doors, following up unanswered questionaries. However, he said,
there is a hint that peak may not be as high as expected, since the rate
of mailed-in questionaries appears to be higher than expected.

The actual number of people hired in April was up a huge
1,158,000, but the level of those working was still down 1.27 million
from a year earlier. The seasonal adjustment factor for April reflects a
usual influx of workers into construction and other seasonal
occupations.

“The labor force has been sort of ticking up since the beginning of
the year,” Nardone said, up 6 tenths since December and except for
January the establishment and the household surveys have been in broad
agreement, further reinforcing the impression of improvement. In
January, however, the household survey had showed an increase of 841,000
while the payrolls survey showed only a 14,000 gain after taking out the
self employed and agriculture workers to make the two surveys more
comparable.

Among the positives deeper in the report was an increase in the
so-called diffusion index, showing “growth in jobs is fairly
widespread,” Nardone said. The index in April was 64.3%, still not back
to pre-recession readings but a lot better than the 57.8% the previous
month. Most categories had at least small positives, even though
temporary help hiring, up 26,000 in April, was “a little less than it
had been,” Nardone said.

Earnings, according to the narrow measure of production workers,
were up 2.3% from a year earlier, still down from the 2.6% annual
increase as recently as January. The broader measure of all workers’
earnings was up 1.6% in April, less than the 1.7% in March.

Among the negatives in the April report, another record set for
both the level and the proportion of those out of work six months or
longer, in April, 6.7 million or 45.9% of all unemployed. Those working
part-time for economic reasons was little changed, at 9.2 million. The
broader unemployment rate that includes those categories was 17.1%.

Expectations in a Market News International survey of economists
centered on a payrolls gain of 200,000 with an unemployment rate
remaining at 9.7%.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

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