The U.S. Economy has posted another month of strong growth. The payroll jumped by 263,000 new jobs in April 2019, while the unemployment rate declined to 3.6%, the lowest rate since December 1969, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There are currently 5.8 million unemployed individuals in the U.S., a drop of 387,000. This number does not include underemployed people such as involuntary part-time workers. There are about 4.7 million people who currently fill part-time jobs, but indicated to actually prefer a full-time position. The number of long-term unemployed individuals remained at 1.2 million in April and accounted for about 21% of the unemployed.
The biggest chunk of new jobs in April was created in the professional and business services workforce. Of the 76,000 new jobs, 53,000 were created in administrative and support services and 14,000 in computer systems design and related services. Professional and business services have added 535,000 new jobs over the past 12 months.
Construction is beginning to see a stronger seasonal uptick with 33,000 new jobs with two thirds of the gains seen in nonresidential specialty trade contractor jobs.
Healthcare also continues its strong pace with 27,000 new jobs in April and 404,000 new jobs over the past year. In April, job growth occurred in ambulatory health care services (17,000 new jobs), hospitals (8,000 new jobs), and community care facilities for the elderly (7,000 new jobs). Check out Raising Career’s healthcare career section to discover professions in the healthcare area.
Other strong employment sectors included social assistance (26,000 new jobs) and finance (12,000 new jobs). Manufacturing is slowing considerably with just 4,000 new jobs in April, down from an average of 22,000 new jobs over the past year. Retail continued its downward trend with job losses of 12,000, which affected general merchandise stores in particular.
Average hourly earnings climbed by 6 cents to $27.77 per hour. Average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees increased by 7 cents to $23.31 in April.
Update 6/10/2019: The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised its estimate of added jobs to 224,000 new positions for the month of April.
