HARRISBURG — On Friday, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry released its employment situation report for April 2020.
The April unemployment and jobs surveys reflect the effects of business and school closures to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.
Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was up 9.3 percentage points over the month to 15.1 percent in April. The national rate rose 10.3 percentage points from March to 14.7 percent. The commonwealth’s unemployment rate increased by 11.0 percentage points from April 2019 while the national rate was up 11.1 points over the year.
Pennsylvania’s civilian labor force — the estimated number of residents working or looking for work — declined by 91,000 over the month. Resident employment was down 687,000 while unemployment rose by 597,000.
Pennsylvania’s total nonfarm jobs were down 1,024,100 over the month to 5,014,200 in April. Jobs were down in each of the 11 industry supersectors. The largest volume supersector decline for the second consecutive month was in leisure & hospitality.
Over the year, total nonfarm jobs in Pennsylvania were down 1,044,000 with declines in 10 of the 11 supersectors (financial activities was unchanged from last April). The largest volume 12-month change among supersectors was a decline of 347,100 jobs in leisure & hospitality.
