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.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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Read more »
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