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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, May 8, 2020
(NOTE: On May 8, 2020, BLS discovered errors in national estimates
for seasonally adjusted all employees in professional and
technical services, professional and business services, private
service- providing, service-providing, total private, and total
nonfarm. The corrected total nonfarm estimate is approximately
37,000 lower than initially reported. Estimates in the LABSTAT
database have been corrected for February, March and April 2020.
BLS will make corrections to other release products next week.)
Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 20.5 million in
April, and the unemployment rate increased to 14.7 percent,
reflecting the widespread impact on the job market of the
coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it.
Employment fell sharply in all major industry sectors, with a
particularly large decline in the leisure and hospitality
sector.
The response rate for the household survey continued to be
adversely affected by pandemic-related issues, while that for
the establishment survey returned to a normal range in April.
In addition, there were changes to the estimation methods for
the establishment survey to better account for the historic
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number of temporary or permanent business closures in April. The
impacts of the pandemic on the household and payroll surveys are
detailed in the April Employment Situation news release and
accompanying materials (available on the BLS website at
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). For both
surveys, we were able to obtain estimates that met BLS standards
for accuracy and reliability.
The substantial job declines related to the coronavirus
pandemic started in March, as payroll employment declined by
870,000, as revi