PHOENIX, AZ – The latest national unemployment and employment figures show a labor market nearing normal, but the country still has a record number of job openings. The unemployment rate in the Phoenix region has largely improved since the pandemic began, and there was some improvement from March to April, according to the Federal Labor Statistics Office. Maricopa County’s unemployment rate was 6 percent in April, up from 6.1 percent in March. This reflected a significant improvement over April 2020 when the unemployment rate was 13.5 percent. Maricopa County’s April unemployment rate is lower than Arizona’s 6.4 percent, according to the latest local BLS figures. The United States created 559,000 non-farm jobs in May and the unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage points to 5.8 percent. According to the BLS, the weekly initial applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level since March 14, 2020. There were around 385,000 seasonally adjusted initial applications, 20,000 fewer than in the previous week; it was also the fifth straight week of declines. The country has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic. Employment on the payroll is down 5 percent from pre-pandemic levels. The long-term unemployed fell by 431,000 to 3.8 million in May, but still increased from 2.6 million in February 2020. The labor force participation rate of 61.6 percent has remained almost constant since June 2020 at around 1.7 percentage points lower than in February 2020. There are still many vacancies, with a record 8.1 million positions across the country at the end of March – led by the hospitality and accommodation, local and government education, arts, entertainment and recreation sectors and. The number of layoffs reached a record low of 1.5 million, according to the BLS.
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