U.S. unemployment rate declined slightly in April as employers cut far fewer jobs than in recent months, the Labor Department reported Friday.
April was the fourth consecutive month when the U.S. economy lost jobs. But employers cut their payrolls by only 20,000 in the month, compared with the 81,000 job reduction logged in March and the job cuts of 75,000 expected by analysts.
The improvement in payrolls pushed the nation's unemployment rate down slightly to 5 percent from 5.1 percent in March. Analysts had been forecasting the jobless rate to climb to 5.2 percent in April.
"Employment continued to decline in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade, while jobs were added in health care and in professional and technical services" last month, said the report.
Workers' average hourly earnings rose by only 0.1 percent in April to 17.88 dollars, less than the 0.3 percent gain analysts were expecting. Over the last 12 months, wages increased by 3.4 percent.
The health of the job market is critical for the overall economy to grow. The worry is that companies, affected by a severe housing slump and a persisting credit crunch, might cut back on hiring further.
Fears that the economy could slid into a recession have been increasing as the economic growth nearly stalled in the past two quarters. The world's biggest economy expanded at an annual rate of just 0.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, the same asin the final quarter of last year.
Source:Xinhua
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