The nation's unemployment rate surged to 8.9 percent in April, its highest level in more than 25 years, but the 539,000 jobs shed represented the fewest losses in six months, the Labor Department said Friday.
President Obama called the latest numbers "somewhat encouraging" but added that the losses were "still a sobering toll."
"It underscores the point that we're still in the midst of a recession that was years in the making and will be months or even years in the unmaking," the president said, adding that Americans "should expect further job losses in the months to come."
The 539,000 jobs shed represented the fewest losses in six months, the Labor Department said, and the news was met by Wall Street investors with cautious optimism, sending the markets up sharply.
The figure was up from March's 8.5 percent rate, but the easing of job losses surprised most economists and broke a five-month streak of payrolls shedding 600,000 or more jobs, a possible sign that the recession is bottoming out.
Companies, however, remain cautious, and many laid-off Americans are finding it tough to find new work. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported a record number of people receiving state unemployment benefits.
DuPont Co. and Microsoft Corp. were among the companies this week that said more staff cuts might be needed.
Economist Hugh Johnson of Johnson Illington Advisors cautioned that one month's numbers are not enough to go on, but he said that the snapshot looks encouraging.
The data are "clearly better than I thought," he told NPR. "Things are not quite as bad as they were in the previous six months."
"I would be cautiously optimistic. The jobless numbers seem to be leveling off," he said.
In Obama's remarks on Friday, he announced a plan to ease restrictions on government grants for education to help retrain unemployed Americans, saying the unemployment system needed to be "not just a safety net but a steppingstone to a new future."
He called for an easing of restrictions on federal Pell grants for education to help furloughed workers retrain.
"The idea here is to fundamentally change our approach to unemployment in this country, so that it's no longer just a time to look for a new job, but to prepare yourself for a better job," he said.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported on Friday that wholesalers slashed inventories for a seventh straight month in March, cutting them 1.6 percent. That followed a 1.7 percent drop in February, the largest monthly decline on records that go back 17 years. Wholesalers saw sales plunge 2.4 percent in March, the fifth decline in six months.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 5.7 million jobs.
March's payroll figure was revised to show a decline of 699,000, instead of the initially reported drop of 663,000. Job losses in February were also revised to 681,000 from 651,000. Government jobs were up by 72,000 after falling by 6,000 in March.
The service sector lost 269,000 positions; manufacturing shed 149,000 and construction cut 110,000 for in April.
From NPR staff and wire reports
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