Sarah Keegan of Windham, N.Y., with her son Kevin, fills out paperwork during a job fair at Columbia-Greene Community College in Hudson, N.Y. on April 22. The Labor Department on Friday said U.S. employers added a robust 288,000 jobs in April, the most in two years, the strongest evidence to date that the economy is picking up after a brutal winter slowed growth.WASHINGTON – The American economy shrugged off the end of a brutal winter last month, rebounding with the biggest hiring surge in two years and suggesting that the job market’s gains could endure.
Employers added 288,000 jobs across industries from manufacturing to construction to accounting. Even local governments hired. The unemployment rate sank to 6.3 percent, its lowest point since 2008, from 6.7 percent.
But the rate fell that far because many fewer people began looking for work in April, thereby reducing the number of unemployed. The proportion of Americans who either have a job or are looking for one dropped to a three-decade low.
And the monthly employment report the government released Friday showed that worker pay has yet to pick up — evidence that the job market has not fully recovered.
Yet April’s robust hiring gains suggested that the economy is returning to the solid pace of growth it achieved in the second half of 2013, before it was hammered by a harsh winter. Job growth has averaged 203,000 a month in the past six months, similar to last year’s average of 194,000.