May 12, 2010 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Unemployment in April 2010
In April, the number of unemployed persons was 15.3 million, and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.9 percent. The rate had been 9.7 percent for the first 3 months of this year.
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In April, the civilian labor force participation rate increased by 0.3 percentage point to 65.2 percent, as the size of the labor force rose by 805,000.
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up over the month, reaching 6.7 million. In April, 45.9 percent of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometime referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was about unchanged at 9.2 million in April. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for whites (9.0 percent) edged up in April, while the rates for all other worker groups (adult men and women, teenagers, blacks, and Hispanics) showed little or no change.
These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation — April 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-0589.
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