Employers cut far fewer jobs in April than in recent months and the unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent, a better-than-expected showing that nonetheless reveals strains in the nation’s labor market.
For the fourth month in a row, the economy lost jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday. But in April the losses totaled 20,000, an improvement from the 81,000 reductions in payrolls logged in March. Job losses for both February and March turned out to be a bit deeper than previously reported.
The latest snapshot of the nationwide employment conditions — while clearly still weak — was better than many economists were anticipating. They were bracing for job cuts of 75,000 and for the unemployment rate to climb to 5.2 percent.
Now, I’m sure someone on the left will rebut about the faults in how unemployment is calculated, and while it is a fair point of debate, if they’re going to dismiss the way unemployment is calculated today, then they have to dismiss the jobless rate in the late 1990’s under Clinton as well — when it is certainly a valid point that the dotcom boom skewed the numbers drastically — and ultimately didn’t sustain itself very long as the economy went into a recession during the Clinton’s final fiscal year.
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