Tagged: Jobs

Lots of people are surely looking at today's jobs headlines somewhat puzzled, asking one significant question: How can it be that hiring was much worse than expected in March and the unemployment rate still fell — to 7.6 percent?

The answer isn't a happy one. There are a couple of ways the unemployment rate can fall.

There were just 88,000 jobs added to private and public payrolls in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates.

But the nation's jobless rate still edged down to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent. That dip wasn't for a good reason, though: Nearly half a million fewer people were participating in the labor force. That smaller pool meant the jobless rate could tick down even as job growth was weak.

The economy added 88,000 jobs last month, according to today's disappointing jobs report. That's not even enough to keep up with population growth.

As of March, 11.7 million people were unemployed. But that number doesn't include people who were working part time because they couldn't find a full-time job. It also doesn't include people who wanted a job but haven't looked for work in the past four weeks.

There were 385,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, up by 28,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration says.

The news follows Wednesday's report of slower-than-expected job growth in the private sector: The ADP National Employment Report estimated that businesses added just 158,000 jobs last month.