By Jessica Menton -
U.S. employers added 126,000 jobs in March as the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.5 percent, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected net job growth of 250,000 last month.
February was revised down from 295,000 to 264,000. The drop in March is under the average 269,000 jobs added over the previous 12 months.
The average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose by 7 cents to $24.86. For most workers, however, real wages have fallen or remained flat for more than three decades. Many Americans who work part-time jobs want to work full time, and nearly two-thirds who are able to work have dropped out of the labor force, the highest portion opting out of work since the 1970s. The labor-force participation rate little changed at 62.7 percent.
The number of Americans who have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer was essentially unchanged last month, at 2.6 million, or 29.8 percent of the unemployed.