Commissioner's Statement on the Employment Situation News Release — 2008-04-04

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. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the March labor market data we released this morning. Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend down in March, and the unemployment rate rose from 4.8 to 5.1 percent. Payroll employment edged down by 80,000 over the month, bringing the decline over the last 3 months to 232,000. To put these recent changes into context, I would note that labor market conditions started to weaken more than a year ago. Average monthly job growth slowed from 175,000 in 2006 to 107,000 in the first half of 2007, to 76,000 in the last half of 2007, and to -77,000 for the first quarter of this year.