Payroll employment rises 115,000 in April; unemployment rate changes little (8.1%)

[Beacool]

19. Discouraging news.

"Unemployment fell to 8.1 percent in April, the lowest since January 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning. But the decline was mainly due to 342,000 people leaving the labor force, meaning the BLS had stopped counting them as unemployed. The number of employed people in the nation actually fell by 169,000.

Nonfarm employers added 115,000 jobs to their payrolls in April, according to a survey of businesses that is different than the household survey that generates the unemployment rate. That job growth was lower than the 170,000 or so economists had expected, though the BLS revised upward the number of jobs that were created in February and March, adding about 53,000 additional jobs to payrolls.

About 12.5 million people are still unemployed, and a record 88.4 million people are considered "not in the labor force," according to the BLS. The labor-force participation rate -- the percentage of the work-age population either working or looking for work -- dropped to 63.6 percent, the lowest since December 1981."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/04/unemployment-rate-april-jobs_n_1477014.html

I work for a Fortune 100 and this past Monday there were lay-offs (second time since 2010).
There's a state of incertitude in the workforce at large. Most people who do have jobs don't feel safe, they know that they can lose them at any minute.