FOR DELIVERY: 9:30 A.M., E.S.T.

FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2004

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 Standard Time.

Statement of

Kathleen P. Utgoff

Commissioner

Bureau of Labor Statistics

before the

Joint Economic Committee

UNITED STATES CONGRESS

Friday, April 2, 2004

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

I appreciate this opportunity to comment on the labor 

market data we released this morning.

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 308,000 in March. 

This follows revised gains of 159,000 in January and 46,000 

in February. Since August 2003, payroll employment has 

risen by 759,000. The unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in 

March, little changed over the month.

Job growth was fairly widespread in March, with gains 

in both the goods-producing and service-providing sectors 

of the economy. Among the goods-producing industries, 
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construction employment increased by 71,000 over the month. 

This unusually large gain followed a decline of 21,000 in 

February. Employment in construction has been trending 

upward over the past year; 201,000 jobs have been added 

over the period.

Manufacturing employment was unchanged in March at 

14.3 million. Factory employment had been declining for 

some time, although the rate of job loss began to moderate 

late last summer. This abatement in job losses has been 

concentrated among durable goods manufacturers. The 

manufacturing workweek was down in March to 40.9 hours. 

Since July 2003, however, the factory workweek is up by 

eight-tenths of an hour. 

Several of the major service-providing industries 

added jobs in March. Retail trade employment increased by 

47,000. Part of this gain reflects the return to payrolls 

of some workers who had been on strike in food stores. 

Elsewhere in retail trade, employment rose over the month 

among motor vehicle and parts dealers and continued to 

trend upward in building material and garden supply stores. 

In health care and social assistance, employment 

increased by 36,000 in March, almost entirely in health 

care industries. There were noteworthy job gains in 
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hospitals, offices of physicians, and nursing and 

residential care facilities.

Employment in professional and business services 

expanded over the month. Job gains occurred in a number of 

component industries, including architectural and 

engineering services, computer systems design, and 

management consulting. Elsewhere in this sector, 

employment in the temporary help industry was basically 

unchanged over the month, after an increase in February. 

From a longer-term perspective, the number of temporary 

help jobs has increased by 212,000 since April 2003.

The food services industry added 27,000 jobs over the 

month. Over the past year, employment in food services has 

expanded by 186,000. The number of jobs in transportation 

and warehousing edged up in March. In financial 

activities, employment increased by 11,000 in credit 

intermediation, reflecting the recent rise in mortgage 

refinancing activity. The job total in the information 

industry was essentially unchanged in March; employment in 

the industry appears to have leveled off recently following 

roughly 2 1/2 years of decline.

Moving on to the data from our household survey, the 

unemployment rate was little changed at 5.7 percent in 

March. The jobless rate has held fairly steady for several 
4

months and remains below its recent peak of 6.3 percent in 

June 2003. 

The labor force participation rate was unchanged in 

March at 65.9 percent. Total employment (as measured in 

the household survey) was essentially flat over the month, 

and the employment-population ratio was little changed at 

62.1 percent. The number of discouraged workers--persons 

outside the labor force who have stopped looking for work 

because they believe their job search efforts would be 

fruitless--was 514,000 in March, not much different from a 

year earlier.

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 

308,000 in March and is up by 759,000 since last August. 

The unemployment rate was little changed over the month, at 

5.7 percent.

My colleagues and I now would be glad to answer your 

questions.