Unemployment Gains Aided by Private Sector

The US Labor Department has just released the March unemployment data and the figures around the change in non-Farm Payrolls.  The unemployment rate was listed as 8.8% on a official basis and the change in non-Farm Payrolls was listed as a gain of 216,000 jobs.  Bloomberg had consensus estimates at 8.9%, same as the February report.  And the initial February non-Farm payrolls gains of 192,000 were expected to be 200,000 for March.

Keep in mind that the workforce was not counted as being higher other than by 160,000 or so and it has shrunk through the post-recession as more and more unemployed workers have “fallen out of the system.”

The gains for March were listed as being some 230,000 from the private sector and 14,000 jobs from the government were lost in local levels with a gain of about 1,000 at the federal government level. 

February’s non-Farm payrolls of 192,000 reported initially was raised to 194,000 on a revision.  January was also revised to 68,000 from a prior 63,000 reported.

The good news is that the numbers keep improving here.  The bad news is that the reports are still somewhat easy to pick apart as being incomplete.  All of those kids exiting college that still live at home and can’t find a job and all of those workers who have now gone beyond the government hand-out cannot exactly be considered ‘out of the labor force’ forever.

JON C. OGG