Hiring continued its slow pace in April as employers added a modest 115,000 jobs to their payrolls.
The jobless rate inched down to 8.1% last month, the Labor Department said Friday, but that wasn’t because more people were employed. Rather, the rate fell as more workers dropped out of the labor force (about 342,000 workers).
The April jobs report was highly anticipated because job growth slowed sharply in March after three strong winter months of payroll gains averaging 252,000.
Job growth last month was bolstered by continued strength in manufacturing, which added 16,000 jobs to payrolls, and professional services such as architecture, engineering and computer systems design also increased staffing.
Wages overall were subdued; average earnings for all private-sector employees went up by a mere penny from March, to $23.38 an hour.
via LA Times