Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press 

under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that 

the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. 

Statement of 

Erica L. Groshen 

Commissioner 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Friday, April 3, 2015

Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 126,000 in March, 

and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.5 percent. 

Employment continued to trend up in professional and business 

services, health care, and retail trade. Job losses continued in 

mining. 

Incorporating the revisions for January and February, which 

reduced nonfarm employment by 69,000, monthly job gains have 

averaged 197,000 over the past 3 months. In the 12 months prior 

to March, employment growth averaged 269,000 per month. 

Employment in professional and business services continued 

to trend up in March (+40,000). Job growth in the first quarter 

of 2015 averaged 34,000 per month in this industry, below the 

average monthly gain of 59,000 in 2014. Within the industry, 

most of the jobs gained in the past 3 months were in the 

professional and technical services component, which had added 
 

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jobs throughout 2014. By contrast, employment in the 

administrative and waste services component (which includes 

temporary help services) has changed little thus far in 2015, 

although this component had added an average of 29,000 jobs per 

month in 2014. 

Employment in health care increased by 22,000 over the 

month, with job gains in ambulatory care services and in 

hospitals. Employment declined by 6,000 in nursing care 

facilities in March. Over the past 12 months, health care has 

added 363,000 jobs. 

Retail trade employment continued to trend up in March 

(+26,000), in line with the average monthly gain over the prior 

12 months. Within retail trade, general merchandise stores 

added 11,000 jobs in March. 

Employment in food services and drinking places changed 

little in March (+9,000), following a large gain in February 

(+66,000). Job growth in the first quarter of 2015 averaged 

33,000 per month in this industry, the same as the average 

monthly gain in 2014. 

Construction employment was essentially unchanged in March 

(-1,000). Employment in the industry had grown by an average of 

26,000 per month over the prior 12 months. 

Employment in mining fell by 11,000 in March, bringing job 

losses for the first quarter of 2015 to a total of 30,000. In 
 

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2014, mining had added 41,000 jobs. The declines in the first 

quarter, as well as the gains in 2014, were concentrated in 

support activities for mining, which includes support for oil 

and gas extraction. 

Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm 

payrolls rose by 7 cents in March to $24.86. Over the past 12 

months, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.1 percent. From 

February 2014 to February 2015, the Consumer Price Index for All 

Urban Consumers (CPI-U) declined by 0.1 percent. 

Turning now to our survey of households, the unemployment 

rate held at 5.5 percent in March, and the number of unemployed 

persons, at 8.6 million, changed little. Both measures are down 

from a year earlier, by 1.1 percentage points and 1.8 million, 

respectively. Among the unemployed in March, 29.8 percent had 

been jobless for 27 weeks or longer. 

The labor force participation rate, at 62.7 percent, 

changed little in March and has remained within a narrow range 

of 62.7 percent to 62.9 percent since April 2014. The 

employment-population ratio was 59.3 percent for the third month 

in a row. 

Among those employed in March, the number of people working 

part time for economic reasons was 6.7 million, little changed 

over the month. These individuals, who would have preferred 

full-time employment, were working part time because their hours 
 

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had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time 

work. 

Among people who were neither working nor looking for work 

in March, 2.1 million were classified as marginally attached to 

the labor force, little changed over the year. These individuals 

had not looked for work in the 4 weeks prior to the survey but 

wanted a job, were available for work, and had looked for a job 

within the last 12 months. The number of discouraged workers, a 

subset of the marginally attached who believed that no jobs were 

available for them, was 738,000 in March, also little changed 

over the year. 

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 126,000 

in March, and the unemployment rate held at 5.5 percent.