Pennsylvania continues to add jobs

Pennsylvania continues to add jobs,  and the latest unemployment numbers continue to show improvement.  Pennsylvania’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April was 7.5%,  down from 7.8% in March and 1.3 percentage points lower than April of 2010.  The year-to-year decline was the largest since June 1987.

Mark Price, Labor Economist with the Keystone Research Center, says Pennsylvania  has been adding around 6 thousand jobs a month on average.  He says the April report is a very good one on all fronts, but the state still has a very long road back to something approximating full employment, and conditions that will generate some wage and income growth.   Price says one potential drag on the recovery is possible job losses in the public sector due to budget cuts.

The national jobless rate for April was 9.0%, up from 8.8% in March.

A breakdown of Pennsylvania’s unemployment numbers is available at the Department of Labor and Industry’s website at www.dli.state.pa.us.