Some Good News on the Unemployment Front

The Labor Department released its unemployment numbers for the month of April today and there is a bit of good news.

The pace of layoffs slowed down last month to 539,000 jobs cut. More than half a million jobs probably sounds like bad news, not good (and, for those 539,000 people, it no doubt is). But this is the lowest layoff figure we’ve had in six months.

Economists had been predicting that 620,000 jobs would be cut, which makes these numbers sound even more hopeful. The buoying was due in large part to the federal government hiring numerous temporary 2010 Census workers.

Unfortunately, the overall unemployment rate continued to climb to the highest percentage since 1983. Today, 8.9 percent of Americans are out of work. Despite the slowdown in job loss, unemployment remains high since employers are still wary of initiating new hires.

So, what do you think? Is the worst of the recession over? When we see that unemployment rate start to shrink as well?