April 2000 — 2000-04-07

Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Good morning. I am pleased to have this opportunity to comment on the labor market data that we released this morning. The unemployment rate was unchanged in March at 4.1 percent. Nonfarm payroll employment, as measured by our establishment survey, expanded by 416,000 over the month, but there are several special factors that must be taken into consideration when interpreting this large increase: - March job growth included an estimated 117,000 temporary workers hired by the Federal government to help conduct the census. - It also is likely that part of the large March gain in nonfarm employment resulted from a calendar anomaly. This year, there were 5 weeks between the February and March survey reference periods instead of the usual 4 weeks.