April 2009 Employment Situation — 2009-05-08

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In April, job los- ses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector indus- tries. Overall, private-sector employment fell by 611,000. The number of unemployed persons increased by 563,000 to 13.7 million in April, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 6.0 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 3.9 percentage points. (See table A-1.) Unemployment rates rose in April for adult men (9.4 percent) and blacks (15.0 percent). The jobless rates for adult women (7.1 percent), teenagers (21.5 percent), whites (8.0 percent), and Hispanics (11.3 percent) were little changed over the month.