Employment Situation Summary April 2009

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: APRIL 2009
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and
the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession
began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In April, job los-
ses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector indus-
tries. Overall, private-sector employment fell by 611,000.