The Labor Department released its employment statistics for the month of April on Friday, and it was a disappointment. Some economists had thought the economy would have created around a million jobs for the month. The actual figure was far below that -- only 266,000 jobs. That would be OK in a healthy economy, but falls short of what is needed to recover from the recession.
The number of employed workers rose by 328,000 in April, but that was not enough to take care of the growth in the civilian workforce, which rose by 430,000. The result was a rise in the number of unemployed workers by 102,000. This made the unemployment rate for April about 6.1% (a growth of 0.1% over the rate for March).
Some employers are complaining that they can't find enough workers for the jobs they have available. They could solve that problem by doing two things -- 1) make sure the workplace is safe for returning workers, and 2) PAY A LIVABLE WAGE.
Here are the relevant statistics for April:
SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORKFORCE:
160,988,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
9,812,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
6.1%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT:
Adult men...............6.1%
Adult women...............5.6%
Teens (16-19)...............12.3%
Whites...............5.3%
Blacks...............9.7%
Asians...............5.7%
Hispanics...............7.9%
Less than HS diploma...............9.3%
HS graduate...............6.9%
Some college...............5.8%
Bachelor's deg. or more...............3.5%
NUMBER OF MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (unemployed but not counted):
1,856,000
MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
11,668,000
MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
7.25%