For some more good news, March saw a large drop of 210, 000 discouraged workers.
This is mainly the result of a shrinking Labour force as discouraged workers give up the search for jobs.
The underemployment rate, including discouraged workers and part-time staffers who would rather work full time, rose by 0.4 percentage point to 17.1%.
This change in discouraged workers makes the rate of 9.7% look even better, because the total labor force statistic used to calculate it includes more Americans.
