April 10, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Payroll employment in
March
Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 416,000 in
March to 130.7 million, seasonally adjusted. This increase included the
addition of 117,000 temporary census workers.
[Chart data—TXT]
Also, it is likely that some of the March payroll employment gain
resulted from a calendar anomaly. This year, there were 5 weeks instead of
the usual 4 between the February and March survey reference periods. The
last time this occurred was in 1972.
Because this occurrence is so rare, the payroll employment estimates
for March cannot be adjusted for the differences in the number of weeks
between the survey reference periods, as is done for other months. Thus,
the estimates of employment change this month reflect an additional week's
growth. This effect is most pronounced in seasonal industries that tend to
add jobs at this time of year.
These data are a product of the BLS Current
Employment StatisticsProgram. Find
out more in "The
Employment Situation: March 2000,"
news release USDL 00-95.
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 »