April 2014 Employment Situation
By: Hope Wilkos, Writer/Blogger
As was expected, the employment growth for April continued on the path that we have been seeing for the last few months with much promise of upswing on the job front. This is the 50th consecutive month that jobs were added and the unemployment rate fell. The President continues to champion and aggressively push for extended unemployment insurance benefits, otherwise it could cost another 160,000 jobs over the course of this year.
There are five key points that need to be stressed, based on the statement that was released by Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
The private sector has added 9.2 million jobs over the last 50 months. Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 288,000 in April which was driven by a 273,000 increase in private employment. Due to the revision on February and March figures, private employment has added an average of 198,000 jobs per month. The pace is increased from the last twelve months.
The level of April payrolls came in 0.05% above expectations which means that the consensus forecast of the level of payroll employment was accurate. Nonfarm payroll employment added 288,000 jobs and was 32% higher than the consensus forecast of 218,000 jobs. Forecasting these types of numbers can be extremely challenging. It is always best to focus on the trend in jobs over longer periods of time as well as a range of other economic data.
Long-term unemployment continues to affect a demographically diverse group that is broadly similar to the group of workers that have been unemployed for shorter durations. The educational attainment of the long-term unemployed is strikingly similar to that of the shorter-term unemployed. Long-term unemployment does not appear to be overly concentrated in a single occupation. This only goes to prove that reinstating extended unemployment insurance still plays a critical role in helping to address this pressing issue at hand.
There is a consistent pattern of job growth across the industries in April and follows that which has been seen over the last year. Looking over 17 particular industries, the correlation between the April change and the average percent change over the last 12 months was 0.87, suggesting that the distribution of employment gains in April was very much in line with the recent trends. Since 2008, this correlation has averaged 0.63. The pickup of job growth in April does not reflect any outlier performance in a single industry or number of prominent industries.
Lastly, if we look over 50 straight months, we see there has been private-sector job growth since March 2010 and the 273,000 increase in private employment in April represents the 3rd strongest single month of job growth during this time frame. Construction rose by 32,000 in April, its 5th strongest month since March 2010. Over just the last four months, the construction sector has added 124,000 jobs. Manufacturing added 12,000 jobs in April which is in line with the average monthly gain over the last 50 months, during which time manufacturing employment has risen by 647,000.
These findings for April should spark more promise in the American people and employment seems to be on the rise. At times the numbers are subject to substantial revision but given the information we have here, we are well on the way to employment recovery.
STATEMENT RELEASED BY THE OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY AT THE WHITE HOUSE
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