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 

William W. Beach 

Commissioner 

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Friday, April 3, 2020

Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 701,000 in March, 

and the unemployment rate increased to 4.4 percent, reflecting 

the broad impact on the job market of the coronavirus (COVID-19) 

and efforts to contain the illness. Employment fell by 459,000

in the leisure and hospitality industry, mainly in food services 

and drinking places. Notable employment decreases also occurred 

in health care and social assistance, professional and business 

services, retail trade, and construction. 

It is important to keep in mind that the March survey 

reference periods for the establishment and household surveys 

(the pay period or week, respectively, that includes the 12th of 

the month) predated many business and school closures that 

occurred in the second half of the month. In addition, data 

collection for the two surveys was affected by the coronavirus. 

Although response rates for both surveys were adversely affected 
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by pandemic-related issues, we still were able to obtain 

estimates from our two surveys that met BLS standards for 

accuracy and reliability.

Incorporating revisions for January and February, which 

decreased payroll employment by 57,000 on net, job gains 

averaged 245,000 in the first 2 months of 2020 before the 

substantial coronavirus-related decline in March. 

Within the leisure and hospitality industry, employment 

fell by 417,000 in food services and drinking places in March, 

as many restaurants and bars cut back operations. This 

employment decline nearly offset the gains over the prior 2 

years. Elsewhere in leisure and hospitality, the accommodation 

industry lost 29,000 jobs in March. 

Employment declined by 61,000 in health care and social 

assistance in March. Health care employment declined by 43,000, 

with losses occurring in offices of dentists (-17,000), offices 

of physicians (-12,000), and offices of other health 

practitioners (-7,000). From February 2019 to February 2020, 

health care added jobs each month, with an average monthly gain 

of 31,000. Employment in social assistance decreased by 19,000 

in March, reflecting a job loss in child day care services 

(-19,000). 

Professional and business services lost 52,000 jobs in 

March, with the decline concentrated in temporary help services 
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(-50,000). Employment also declined in travel arrangement and 

reservation services (-7,000). 

Employment in retail trade decreased by 46,000 over the 

month, with job losses occurring in clothing stores (-16,000); 

furniture stores (-10,000); and sporting goods, hobby, book, and 

music stores (-9,000). By contrast, employment increased in 

general merchandise stores (+10,000). 

After an average monthly employment increase of 40,000 in 

January and February, construction employment declined by 

29,000 in March. Job losses occurred in nonresidential building 

(-11,000) and in heavy and civil engineering construction 

(-10,000). 

Employment in the other services industry declined by 

24,000 in March, with about half of the loss occurring in 

personal and laundry services (-13,000). Over the prior 12 

months, other services had added 89,000 jobs. 

Mining employment decreased by 6,000 in March, mostly in 

support activities for mining. Since a peak in January 2019, 

mining has lost 42,000 jobs. 

Manufacturing employment edged down in March (-18,000). 

Over the past year, manufacturing employment has changed little 

on net. 
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Federal government employment rose by 18,000 in March. The 

gain largely reflects the hiring of 17,000 temporary workers for 

the 2020 Census. 

Employment in other major industries--including wholesale 

trade, transportation and warehousing, information, and 

financial activities--showed little change in March. 

Average weekly hours decreased by 0.2 hour in March for all 

private-sector workers, also reflecting the impact of the 

coronavirus. The decline in the average workweek was most 

pronounced in the leisure and hospitality industry, where 

average weekly hours dropped by 1.4 hours over the month. 

Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm 

payrolls rose by 11 cents in March to $28.62, following a gain 

of 8 cents in February. Over the past 12 months, average hourly 

earnings have risen by 3.1 percent. From February 2019 to 

February 2020, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers 

(CPI-U) increased by 2.3 percent (on a seasonally adjusted 

basis). 

Turning to the labor market indicators from the household 

survey, the unemployment rate increased by 0.9 percentage point 

to 4.4 percent in March, and the number of unemployed people 

increased by 1.4 million to 7.1 million. The increase in the 

unemployment rate was the largest single-month change since 

January 1975, when it also increased by 0.9 percentage point. 
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The bulk of the increase in unemployment occurred among people 

on temporary layoff, which increased by 1.0 million in March to 

1.8 million. 

Among the unemployed, the number of people searching for 

work for less than 5 weeks was 3.5 million, an increase of 1.5 

million from February. These recently unemployed people 

represented nearly half (48.5 percent) of the unemployed in 

March. The number of people searching for work for 27 weeks or 

more was little changed at 1.2 million. These long-term 

unemployed accounted for 15.9 percent of the unemployed. 

The labor force participation rate declined by 0.7 

percentage point in March to 62.7 percent. The employmentpopulation ratio fell by 1.1 percentage points over the month to 

60.0 percent. 

In March, 5.8 million people were working part time for 

economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time 

workers), 1.4 million more than in February. Most of this 

increase was among people whose hours were cut due to slack work 

or business conditions.

Among those neither working nor looking for work in March, 

1.4 million were considered marginally attached to the labor 

force, essentially unchanged over the month. (People who are 

marginally attached to the labor force had not looked for work 

in the 4 weeks prior to the survey but wanted a job, were 
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available for work, and had looked for a job within the last 12 

months.) Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally 

attached who believed no jobs were available for them, numbered 

514,000 in March, up 109,000 from February.

In addition to the increase in the number of unemployed 

people, there was also an increase in the number of workers who 

were classified as employed but absent from work for the entire 

reference week. Special instructions sent to household survey 

interviewers just before data collection started for March 

called for all employed people absent from work due to 

coronavirus-related business closures to be classified as 

unemployed on temporary layoff. However, after BLS reviewed the 

data, it was apparent that not all such workers were so 

classified. Such a misclassification is an example of 

nonsampling error and can occur when respondents misunderstand 

questions or interviewers record answers incorrectly. As is our 

usual practice, no ad hoc actions were taken to reassign survey 

responses; the data were accepted as recorded. 

If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent 

from work due to “other reasons” (over and above the number 

absent for other reasons in a typical March) had been classified 

as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate 

would have been almost 1 percentage point higher than reported. 
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Additional information is available online at

www.bls.gov/cps/employment-situation-covid19-faq-march-2020.pdf. 

Summarizing the labor market developments in March, nonfarm 

payroll employment declined by 701,000, and the unemployment 

rate increased to 4.4 percent, broadly reflecting some of the 

early effects on the job market of the coronavirus and efforts 

to contain it.