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,
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 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
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.