The American economy added an unexpectedly strong 290,000 jobs in April, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.9%, the government said Friday.
Analysts had expected a gain of about 190,000 in the month.
With revisions on Friday, April was the fourth consecutive month that the economy added workers (a revised 230,000 jobs were added in March instead of 162,000), the job market still has a long way to go before it can be counted on to provide a base for a sustained economic recovery. More than 15.3 million were unemployed last month.
Besides March, February was revised from a loss of 14,000 jobs to a gain of 39,000. With a January gain of 14,000, the cumulative increase came to 573,000 jobs in four months.
Private employers added 231,000 jobs in April. The federal government also added, including 66,000 temporary positions for the 2010 Census.
Despite the increase in jobs, the unemployment rate rose, mostly because the government said 195,000 workers re-entered the labor force after giving up on job hunts during the recession. When jobless people do not look for work, they are not counted in the official unemployment rate.
More than 100,000 jobs a month are needed just to keep up with the growth of the working-age population, even without reducing the millions of Americans who are already unemployed.
Still, Friday’s jobless data was the latest to contribute to a picture of a slowly improving economy, and analysts hoped the employment numbers would help to fuel the momentum of upturns in business confidence.
Recently released manufacturing figures show the sector picking up, and the overall economy has continued to expand since last summer, reaching an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 3.2% in the last quarter. Retailers on Thursday reported a 0.5% increase in sales in April, and a 4.8% for the spring shopping season.
As of yet, however, the improvements have not ushered in a sustained hiring.
"I just don’t think the average person in the street thinks that we are even out of the recession," said John Canally, an economist for LPL Financial.
Economists estimated that there would be continued growth, particularly in the "bright spots" of the retail and manufacturing sectors, said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak and Company.
And the health and education sectors will continue to add jobs, Mr. Canally said. Retailers will also begin to add workers to recoup market share, encouraged by an apparent willingness by consumers to spend their way out of the doldrums.
The government figures show that there were 6.7 million people out of work, even those trying to work part-time. The average length of time that people remained out of work was in April to 27 weeks. In March that figure was 31.2 weeks, the longest period since 1948, when the government started to keep track of such records.
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