Unemployment, job growth up

May 8, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON

An encouraging April jobs report showed that the U.S. economic recovery is gathering steam, but analysts warned that a widening financial crisis in Europe remains a global threat.

Nonfarm employment leapt by a better-than- expected 290,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department reported Friday, but that was shadowed by an increase in the unemployment rate to 9.9 percent from 9.7 percent in March. Job growth also was greater in March than originally reported, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics raised the original March estimate from 162,000 new jobs to 230,000.

Private employers alone added 230,000 jobs in April, the strongest surge in four years, with government adding the rest. Revisions to January and February employment estimates showed 121,000 more jobs were added then than first reported too, so the economy has added jobs for four consecutive months.

“These numbers are particularly heartening when you consider where we were a year ago,” President Barack Obama said. When Obama took office, the economy was shedding about 750,000 jobs a month.

When combined with the recent report that the economy expanded by 3.2 percent in the first three months of 2010, there’s reason to think that hiring will continue to improve.

“It feels like a light switch went on in many businesses this spring. The job gains in March and April were strong and broad-based across industries,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, an economic forecaster in West Chester, Pa. “Most encouraging is the job growth in manufacturing and construction, which have been the most serious drags on the job market.”

Virtually every sector of the economy added jobs, including health care, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, manufacturing, construction, retailing, government and financial services.