Employers Add Jobs; Unemployment Climbs

MELISSA BLOCK, Host:

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

JIM ZARROLI: And the Labor Department also said job creation was better than first thought, in February and March. Austan Goolsbee is chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

BLOCK: The last three months, we've added more than a quarter million jobs on average, every month. That's very heartening - and the fact that it was really, across a whole lot of different industries.

ZARROLI: There was growth in practically every sector of the economy, including health care, retail and manufacturing. Professional and business services added 51,000 jobs. The electronics and engineering giant Siemens has seen an increase in orders. Daryl Dulaney, president and CEO of Siemens Industry, says the company is actively recruiting employees, especially in skilled fields like engineering.

BLOCK: We have, at present, over 3,000 job openings. So the growth in the business is really driving the job growth. We have added about a thousand new job openings in just the last two quarters.

ZARROLI: Labor economist Heidi Shierholz, of the Economic Policy Institute, says there's no clear explanation for why the numbers diverge. But she says no matter what is happening, the job market still has a long way to go to fully recover.

BLOCK: It is still a very inhospitable environment for job-seekers right now. We still have over four unemployed workers for every job opening.

ZARROLI: Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.

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