May 05, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Employment, unemployment up in April

The unemployment rate rose to 6.0 percent and the number of unemployed persons increased to 8.8 million in April. The unemployment rate has ranged from 5.6 to 6.0 percent since November 2001.

[Chart data—TXT]

Total employment edged up to 137.7 million in April. The employment-population ratio was essentially unchanged at 62.4 percent. About 4.8 million persons worked part time but would have preferred a full-time schedule—a count that increased by about 600,000 over the past year.

The civilian labor force increased by 680,000 over the month to 146.5 million. The labor force participation rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 66.4 percent, but is still 0.7 percentage point below where it was at the start of the recession.

These labor force data are products of the Current Population Survey. All data used in this report are seasonally adjusted. For more information, see "The Employment Situation: April 2003" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 03-203.