Unemployment Rate Edges Down to 3.9% in April
May 14, 2018
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.9 percent in April, following 6 months at 4.1 percent.
The number of unemployed persons, at 6.3 million, also edged down over the month. Job gains occurred in professional and business services (+54,000), manufacturing (+24,000), health care (+24,000), and mining (+8,000). Employment changed little over the month in other major industries, including construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government.
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women decreased to 3.5 percent in April. The jobless rates for adult men (3.7 percent), teenagers (12.9 percent), Whites (3.6 percent), Blacks (6.6 percent), Asians (2.8 percent), and Hispanics (4.8 percent) showed little or no change over the month.
Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs declined by 188,000 in April to 3.0 million.
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.3 million in April and accounted for 20.0 percent of the unemployed. Over the year, the number of long-term unemployed was down by 340,000.
Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.8 percent, and the employment- population ratio, at 60.3 percent, changed little in April.
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 5.0 million in April. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or because they were unable to find full-time jobs.
In April, 1.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 172,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
Among the marginally attached, there were 408,000 discouraged workers in April, little changed from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.0 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in April had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.
