Jobless rate up 4 percentage points during the recession.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the civilian unemployment rate rose nearly half a percentage point to 8.9 percent in April.  The last time unemployment was this high was over 25 years ago, in September 1983.  Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the unemployment rate has increased a full four percentage points.  Of the 13.7 million unemployed, roughly 8.8 million unemployed workers (64.4 percent) lost their jobs involuntarily.  There were another 8.9 million who were working part-time because they couldn’t find a full-time job and then 2.1 million considered “marginally attached” to the labor force (those who wanted a job, searched within the past 12 months, but hadn’t searched within the 4-week reference period used to define official unemployment status).  Including these underemployed individuals in the broader jobless category would bring the rate up to 15.8 percent, the highest level recorded by BLS. (See Chart)

Job losses continue to be widespread. The results of the BLS Establishment Survey showed that the economy lost 539,000 jobs in April, marking the 16th straight month of nonfarm job losses.  Job losses since the start of the recession now total 5.7 million, with nearly 70 percent of the losses (3.9 million) occurring in the past six months.  Leaving aside government hiring, private sector employers cut 611,000 jobs in April, bringing the recession total to just under 6 million.  Most sectors experienced some measure of downsizing, with a slightly larger share of the losses in service-providing industries than in goods-producing industries. The construction (-110,000) and manufacturing (-149,000) sectors continued to decline along with employment in the professional and business services sector (-122,000), largely attributable to the elimination of more than 60,000 temporary help services jobs.  Other sectors experiencing large losses included financial activities (-40,000) and retail trade (-47,000).  The health care sector and the federal government were among the few sectors to increase their payrolls with gains of 16,700 and 66,000, respectively, the latter of which was due largely to temporary hiring for the 2010 Census.

Glimmers of hope in housing, other employment data.  Though the BLS report illustrates the challenges still facing the U.S. economy, recent news suggests that the freefall declines in the housing and labor markets may be behind us.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that their index for pending home sales, which measures sales activity when contracts are signed, increased 3.2 percent in March and rose 1.1 percent from 12 months earlier.  Because the pending home sales index can be seen as a leading indicator for NAR’s existing home sales report (which records activity at the close of escrow), this may be a signal that the housing market has bottomed out.  Additionally, the Department of Labor released its weekly unemployment claims report showing that the 4-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment insurance fell 14,750 to 623,500, the fourth straight week where the average has declined.  Though a record number continue to receive benefits (6.2 million continuing claims, 4-week average), the recent peak in initial claims indicates that the weekly rate of job losses is slowing.