US unemployment rate unchanged at 3.6% in April

Washington, May 7

US employers added 428,000 jobs in April amid a tight labour market, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 3.6 per cent, the Labour Department said in a report.

Job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, in manufacturing, and in transportation and warehousing, according to the report released on Friday by the Department's Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS).

The growth in total non-farm payroll employment for February was revised down by 36,000 to 714,000, and the gain for March was revised down by 3,000 to 428,000, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying.

Companies were struggling to hire as labour market supply could not meet demand. The number of job openings was little changed at 11.5 million by end of March, the highest level in the history of the series which began in December 2000, the BLS had said on Tuesday.

Friday's report revealed that the number of unemployed persons, however, dropped slightly from 6 million in March to 5.9 million in April, indicating that there were 1.9 job positions for every unemployed.

The April employment report showed that the labour force participation rate dropped slightly to 62.2 per cent, still about one percentage point below the pre-pandemic level of 63.4 per cent.

Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose by 10 cents, or 0.3 per cent, to $31.85 in April.

Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 5.5 per cent.

The BLS report also showed that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6 per cent in April, which was slightly above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5 per cent.