"Jim" wrote in message
link.net...
Bush is behind about 3 1/2 years.

NOYB wrote:

Businesses Add 308,000 Jobs in March

Friday, April 02, 2004



WASHINGTON - U.S. employment rose last month at the fastest pace in
nearly
four years, easily outstripping expectations, as workers returned after
a
grocery store strike and construction hiring bounced back on better
weather,
a government report on Friday showed.

The latest report from the Labor Department offered comfort to President
George W. Bush (search) as the jobs market - a hot political issue in
the
U.S. presidential campaign - finally made a decisive break to the
upside.

Non-farm payrolls climbed 308,000 in March, the Labor Department said,
the
biggest gain since April 2000 and well above the 103,000 rise expected
on
Wall Street.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.7 percent from the two-year low of
5.6
percent seen in January and February.

Upward revisions to January and February payrolls helped contribute to
the
positive tone of the report, which could fuel expectations that the
Federal
Reserve may be closer to raising overnight interest rates from their
current
1958 low of 1 percent than had been thought.

The March rise in payrolls reflected the resolution of a labor dispute
at
grocery stores in southern California that had idled 72,000 workers. The
department said the return of those workers helped fuel a 47,000
increase in
retail employment last month, but it did not quantify the impact.

Economists had said the return of those workers would boost payrolls,
but
that the impact was hard to gauge because it was unclear how many
temporary
replacement workers were being let go.

The report showed job gains were widespread across industries.

While a long-hoped for rise in manufacturing employment did not appear,
the
department said factory payrolls were unchanged in March, finally
breaking a
string of 43 consecutive monthly declines.





Maybe in your mind, but in the minds of most Americans he is ahead in the
polls. LOL!!