...March's 4.3 percent unemployment rate was only 0.1 point higher than February's, but nevertheless the highest since July 1999 when it was also 4.3 percent. The total number of unemployed workers rose to 6.1 million last month, the first time it has been that high in two years.
Some other details in the report were more positive. The length of the average workweek in the private economy for production and non-supervisory employees rose by six minutes, to 34.3 hours. That was slightly more than enough to offset the decline in employment, so that the total number of hours worked increased. In fact, the Labor Department's index of aggregate hours worked has been virtually flat for a year, rising at an annual rate of 0.8 percent since the end of last year.
But because of substantial gains in productivity -- the amount of goods and services produced for each hour worked -- the economy has continued to grow even though the number of hours worked has not.
Ray Stone of Stone & McCarthy, a financial markets research firm, said that if productivity rose at a 1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, coupled with the small increase in hours worked, it would mean the economy grew at a 1.5 percent to 2 percent pace in January through March.
In other words, if productivity continues to increase -- as Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and other Fed officials believe it will -- it would be possible for the economy to grow slowly while payrolls do not and the unemployment rate goes up.
Also, with unemployment at 4.3 percent, many local and regional labor markets remain so tight that workers losing jobs are readily finding new ones. The median length of time people have been without a job was 6.5 weeks last month, up from about 6 weeks for most of the past year. In the early 1990s, that figure was as high as 10 weeks. (At the median, half of those unemployed have been jobless for more than 6.5 weeks and half have been jobless for less.
The Labor Department said that along with a loss of 81,000 manufacturing jobs and 46,000 retail jobs, payrolls in temporary-help firms fell by 83,000 and are down by 300,000 over the past 11 months. Many of those lost jobs were also at manufacturing firms, which typically have a substantial number of workers supplied by temp agencies.
But the number of service jobs rose enough in other industries to offset the combined loss in retailing and temporary help.
"Strong job growth continued in health services and in computer and data processing services," said Katharine G. Abraham, commissioner of labor statistics. "Employment also rose in social, educational and legal services. Engineering and management services continued to add jobs in March."
There were also employment gains in construction and in mortgage banking, where low mortgage interest rates have increased mortgage refinancing and required more workers, Abraham said.
Most of the increase in unemployment was among adult men,whose rate rose to 3.8 percent from 3.5 percent in February. The rate among adult women fell slightly to 3.6 percent from 3.7 percent while that for teenagers rose to 13.8 percent from 13.6 percent.
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