JOBLESS RATE DROPS TO 8.8%; BUSINESSES SAY THEY CREATE 230K JOBS

WASHINGTON (PAI)—The nation’s unemployment rate dropped 0.1% in March,
to 8.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Private businesses said they created
230,000 new jobs, a gain partially offset when state and local governments fired 14,000.

Economist Heidi Shierholtz of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute
welcomed the gain, but said it’s not enough to get people to start jumping up and down.

“The reality check is the larger context: Given the size of the gap in the labor
market,” between those who had jobs and available spots, “even at March’s job growth
rate, it would still take until around 2018 to get back to the pre-recession unemployment
rate,” of 5% in 2006, she said. “In other words, as a snapshot, this report looks quite
good, but given where we are, we need to see this and more in the coming months.”

Economist Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think
tank, added the much-maligned – by Republicans – Obama stimulus bill pulled the U.S.
out of the jobs slide Bush left, but not enough to completely turn the economy around.

“Policies over the past two years pulled the labor market out of its late 2008 free
fall. Members of Congress now have a choice as the boys of summer take the field this
week: Foolish shutdowns and austerity measures or a home run by passing a budget
that focuses on continued job growth both in the short and long run," Boushey said.

The number of unemployed dropped by 131,000 in March, to 13.542 million.
Both the jobless rate and the numbers are far above those the last Democratic
administration bequeathed to former GOP President George W. Bush in 2001 (4% and
5.956 million). After two Bush crashes, he passed an unemployment rate rising above
8% to Democrat Barack Obama. It touched a high of 9.9%, adjusted, last November.

There were some other negative numbers in the jobless figures for March. One
was the number of people unemployed six months or longer grew by 129,000, to 6.12
million, or a record 45.5% of all unemployed. That was a 1.6% rise in one month.
Unknown: How many long-term jobless are in states, such as Michigan and Missouri,
where GOP-run state legislatures rolled back extended jobless benefits to 20 weeks.

And of the 85 million people not in the labor force, 6.51 million “currently want a
job,” BLS calculated. That, too, is a record.

Several sectors of the economy are still staggering, BLS said. One big one:
Construction, where one-fifth of all workers (1.7 million) are jobless. That’s down from
one-quarter, and 2.25 million unemployed construction workers, a year ago. And 15.7%
of all workers are jobless, marginally attached to the workforce or have become so

discouraged they’ve dropped out of looking. Factories gained 17,000 jobs in March.