TED: The Editor's Desk

April 10, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Payroll employment in March

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 416,000 in March to 130.7 million, seasonally adjusted. This increase included the addition of 117,000 temporary census workers.

Over-the-month change in payroll employment, total and total private, Jan.-Mar. 2000 (seasonally adjusted)
[Chart data—TXT]

Also, it is likely that some of the March payroll employment gain resulted from a calendar anomaly. This year, there were 5 weeks instead of the usual 4 between the February and March survey reference periods. The last time this occurred was in 1972.

Because this occurrence is so rare, the payroll employment estimates for March cannot be adjusted for the differences in the number of weeks between the survey reference periods, as is done for other months. Thus, the estimates of employment change this month reflect an additional week's growth. This effect is most pronounced in seasonal industries that tend to add jobs at this time of year.

These data are a product of the BLS Current Employment StatisticsProgram. Find out more in "The Employment Situation: March 2000," news release USDL 00-95.

Of interest

Spotlight on Statistics: The Recession of 2007–2009

The most recent recession in the United States began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, though many of the statistics that describe the U.S. economy have yet to return to their pre-recession values. In this Spotlight, we present BLS data that compare the recent recession to previous recessions. Read more »