The unemployment rate is at its lowest since December 2008, since 165,000 net jobs were added by the U.S. economy in April, meaning that the unemployment rate is now at 7.5 percent.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there was an increase in employment in business and professional careers as well as retail, food services, and health care. Although there was a little decrease to the unemployment rate in April, there showed a 0.4 percent point change since January and it is presumably going down.
Although 165,000 jobs in April alone seems like a lot, according to the New York Times, there were 138,000 jobs generated in March and 332,000 jobs generated in February.
Steve Blitz, who is the chief economist at ITG mentioned that, although new jobs were being made, most of the jobs were in the low paying food and retail industries hiring 38,000 workers from restaurants and 30,000 workers from retail, and 31,000 from Temporary help firms. “You’re hiring people, but you’re not generating high-income jobs,” Blitz said. “But work is work. It’s honorable.”
Analysts, according to the Los Angeles Times, had expected a lower rate of about 148,000 jobs, but clearly there expectations were met and exceeded.
"With an increase of 165,000 jobs in April, and following the significant upward revisions for February and March, the job market looks better than expected despite the sequester or issues like the rising cost of providing healthcare benefits," said Kathy Bostjancic, who is the director of macroeconomic analysis at the Conference Board.
The Washington Post had also added that 23,000 jobs were given to those in Technical and Professional services which specifically includes Engineering, Architecture and Accounting; while Health Services and Education added 44,000 jobs.
Although these more higher paying jobs did not have as many job openings as per say the lower paying careers, work is work and it is right on target to help bandage the wound.
“It’s back to normal for this cycle,” said Blitz of ITG. “This number is back to the mainstream of what we’ve seen in this recovery.”