March 2016 employment: US adds 215,000 jobs

The Employment Situation’ news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added 215,000 jobs in March while the unemployment rate and unemployed persons was  little changed at 5.0 percent and 8 million respectively. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.5 percent), adult women (4.6 percent), teenagers (15.9 percent), Whites (4.3 percent), Blacks (9.0 percent), Asians (4.0 percent), and Hispanics (5.6 percent) showed little or no change in March. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 2.2 million in March and has shown little movement since June. In March, these individuals accounted for 27.6 percent of the unemployed. Significantly, there were 585,000 discouraged workers in March, which is down by 153,000 from a year earlier. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for January was revised from +172,000 to +168,000, and the change for February was revised from +242,000 to +245,000. With these revisions, employment gains in January and February combined were 1,000 less than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 209,000 per month.]]>