Continuing an unprecedented streak of economic recovery, the United States added 211,000 jobs to the market in April, leading to a 10-year low unemployment rate at 4.4 percent.
The robust job creation contrasts with March’s 79,000. Analysts are attributing strong job numbers to the sustained recovery as well as an overall economic outlook, partly boosted by President Donald Trump’s policies and the stock market’s confidence in his reforms and infrastructure spending plans.
April was the 79th month marking additions of jobs since the U.S, rebound from the 2008 financial crisis that roiled world markets.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, health care and social assistance, financial activities, and mining areas.
Over the year, the unemployment rate has declined by 0.6 percentage point, and the number of unemployed has fallen by 854,000, the Bureau said Friday
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men declined to 4.0 percent in April.
A breakdown of statistics reveals that the jobless rates for adult women (4.1 percent), teenagers (14.7 percent), Whites (3.8 percent), Blacks (7.9 percent), Asians (3.2 percent), and Hispanics (5.2 percent) showed little change.
“This steady and sustained increase in job creation equals new paychecks for American workers and income for American families,” R. Alexander Acosta, the U.S. Secretary of Labor, said.
Nonetheless, Acosta says, the U.S. has challenges ahead as “we continue to focus on job growth, on bridging the skills gap and on expanding opportunity for all Americans.”
The Bureau of Statistics says the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 1.6 million in April and accounted for 22.6 percent of the unemployed. Over the year, the number of long-term unemployed was down by 433,000.
The labor force participation rate, at 62.9 percent, changed little in April and hasshown little movement over the past year. The employment-population ratio, at 60.2 percent, was also little changed over the month but was up by 0.5 percentage point since December, the Bureau reported.
Over the past 12 months, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons has decreased by 698,000, according to the statistics.
