Mixed bag! From Bloomberg:
May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Employment in the U.S. increased in April by the most in four years and the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose as thousands of people entered the labor force, indicating the recovery is becoming self-sustaining.
Payrolls jumped 290,000 last month, more than the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, after a revised 230,000 increase in March that was larger than initially estimated, figures from the Labor Department in Washington showed today. The jobless rate rose to 9.9 percent last month from 9.7 percent.
from Financial Sense:
Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 290,000 in April, the unemployment rate edged up to 9.9 percent, and the labor force increased sharply, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in manufacturing, professional and business services, health care, and leisure and hospitality. Federal government employment also rose, reflecting continued hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010.
Despite the rosy numbers, the unemployment rate rose to 9.9%. Census workers count for 48,000 and the CES Birth/Death Model registered 188,000 fictitious new jobs. The real number of new hires is probably closer to 54,000. In addition, the number of marginally attached workers rose by 177,000 and discouraged workers rose by 203,000. I don’t call this a good report.
Table U-6, which includes discouraged workers not counted in the headline figures, suggest the real unemployment percentage rose from 16.9% to 17.1%.
