Jobs areas that had been lagging—employment of men and for those living in the Midwest—have shown an upswing in employment in recent months, the CEO of temporary placement agency Kelly Services told CNBC Friday.
AP
Constrcution Worker
“This was a spectacular jobs report, and it’s fairly much across the country,” said Carl Camden of Kelly.
The Department of Labor’s Jobs Report recorded 290,000 nonfarm jobs for April. Combined with the March report, the U.S. economy has added half a million jobs in the two-month period.
Camden pointed out that job creation in states like Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, a sluggish geographic region during the recession, is picking up. Some of those gains are in manufacturing and construction numbers, which account in part the uptick in jobs for men.
The April jobs numbers in those two sectors were 58,000 combined, which was dwarfed by the services number at 166,000. Other gains were 66,000 for the U.S. Census and 12,000 for retail.
“This is the first time in quite a while that we’ve had more job increases for men than women,” he added.
Other bright spots are in smaller communities, which tend to have more jobs than large cities, he said. In addition, he pointed out, employment prospects for those with a college degree are solid: Unemployment among those better educated is at 5 percent. The national unemployment average is at 9.9 percent.
Jobs news is discouraging for those in the inner city and among Hispanics and African-Americans and for those without a college degree, said Camden.
“It will be much slower,” added Camden. “I’ve seen estimates as long as 2014 until we see a return to what passes for normal [for those groups]. Most of the jobs being created now are requiring a higher level of education.”