National

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on April Jobs Report


Washington DC–(ENEWSPF)– The addition of 290,000 jobs in April, the fourth consecutive monthly gain, is a hopeful sign, if it can be sustained, that real employment growth is finally underway.  Still, we face an enormous challenge to get out of the more than 11-million job hole that was opened by the Great Recession that began in 2007.

Even the rise in the unemployment rate to 9.9 percent reflects a positive trend, because it means that over 800,000 workers entered the labor force — many of them formerly discouraged workers who had stopped looking for work. But, the share of the 15.3 million unemployed workers who have been unemployed for more than six months rose again to a new record of 45.9 percent.

It’s important to remember that the economic recovery supporting this job growth remains fragile, however.  Despite positive signs of continued growth in manufacturing and construction jobs, some of the overall job gains still depend on factors – government stimulus, inventory re-stocking and census hiring – that are likely to fade through the year.

We urge Congress to act quickly and decisively to enact legislation that invests in our future, gets workers back on their feet now and protects against repeat financial crises.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions. The AFL-CIO union movement represents 10.5 million members, including 2 million members in Working America, its new community affiliate. We are teachers and truck drivers, musicians and miners, firefighters and farm workers, bakers and bottlers, engineers and editors, pilots and public employees, doctors and nurses, painters and laborers-and more.


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