April 2009 Unemployment Rate 8.9% – Chart of the Day

The labor market is still weak, but there’s little hope that the situation may start to improve as the pace of job cut slowed in April.

The Labor Department reported today that U.S. employers trimmed 539,000 nonfarm jobs in April 2009, the smallest monthly decline since October 2008, after ADP data showed similar decline early this week. However, the household survey showed that the unemployment rate has soared a 25-year of 8.9% last month. March’s job loss rate was revised higher to 699K, the highest monthly job loss in six decades.

The Labor Department report showed that the total number of workers without a job reached 13.6 million in April, mostly in private-sector industries. Manufacturing is still the hardest hit sector with more than 149K job losses in April, followed by professional and business services industry, which lost 122K positions. Construction is still weak, with employment  down 110k last month. Health care is the only sector that grew in April, with 17K new workers added to the payroll.

Since the recession began in December 2007, more than 5.7 million jobs have been lost.

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