The Employment Situation: April 1994 — 1994-05-06

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to increase in April and unemployment was little changed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The nation's jobless rate was 6.4 percent; it had been 6.5 percent in the prior 2 months. The number of payroll jobs, as measured by the survey of business establishments, increased by 267,000 in April, with notable gains in services, retail trade, and construction. Total employment, as measured by the household survey, rose slightly over the month after showing little change over the first quarter of the year. Both the number of unemployed persons (8.4 million) and the unemployment rate (6.4 percent) were about unchanged over the month. Since January, however, the overall unemployment rate has declined by 0.3 percentage point and the total number of jobless persons has fallen by close to 300,000.