Unemployment Goes Up Again
In a repeat of its March performance, the U.S. unemployment rate rose 0.4 percentage points in April 2009. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the monthly unemployment rate is now 8.9%, as opposed to 8.5% in March and 8.1% in February.
Job losses were widespread across industries. Selected highlights from Bureau of Labor Statistics figures follow:
- The total number of unemployed Americans increased by 563,000, from roughly 13.2 million to 13.7 million.
- Since April 2008, the unemployment rate has risen by 3.9 percentage points, or 6 million people.
- Since November 2008, about 3.21 million people have lost their jobs.
- The number of long-term unemployed (27 weeks or more), increased since February from 3.2 million to 3.7 million, about 15.5%.
- The civilian labor force participation rate rose slightly from 65.5% in March to 65.8% in April.
- Retail trade employment fell by 47,000, and has averaged about 44,000 job losses per month since March 2007.
Job losses in specific retail verticals include 14,000 in department stores, 9,000 in auto dealerships, and 8,000 in building material and garden supply stores.
The continuing rise in U.S. unemployment checks a couple of mildly positive economic indicators that have been recently released. These include a significant jump in the Consumer Confidence Index and slow but steady growth in the Restaurant Performance Index. On the negative side, the U.S. GDP (gross domestic product) continued contracting in Q1 2009.