Hiring at service providers was little changed at 119,000, with the biggest gains in professional and business services at 54,000, and education and health services at 31,000.
The decline in the jobless rate resulted from a drop in the number of unemployed people, while the number of employed Americans was little changed, according to the Labor Department’s separate survey of households.
That pushed down the participation rate, or share of working-age people in the labor force, to 62.8 percent from 62.9 percent in the prior month. The employment-population ratio, another broad measure of labor-market health, fell to 60.3 percent from 60.4 percent.
The wage figures showed pay gains are having a tough time breaking out of their recent pace of modest increases. The monthly gain in average hourly earnings followed a downwardly revised 0.2 percent increase in March, and March’s annual increase was also revised lower to 2.6 percent.
A separate measure, average hourly earnings for production and non-supervisory workers, also increased 2.6 percent from a year earlier, after a 2.6 percent gain. The average work week for all private employees was unchanged at 34.5 hours.
Other Details
The U-6, or underemployment rate, fell to 7.8 percent from 8 percent; the gauge includes part-time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want a job but aren’t actively looking. People working part time for economic reasons fell by 34,000 to 4.99 million. The participation rate for prime-age workers, or people in the age group of 25 to 54, fell to 82 percent from 82.1 percent; it rose among men and fell among women. The number of people out of work for 27 weeks or longer, or the so-called long-term unemployed, fell as a share of all jobless to 20 percent from 20.3 percent
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.