Jobless Rate Holds Steady at 7.2% : But Economy Spurs Strong Rise in Civilian Work Force

Overall unemployment remained at 7.2% in March, the Labor Department announced Friday, but the civilian economy generated more new jobs than in any month since last May.

The number of civilian jobs reached 107.1 million in March, up 434,000 from February, and the percentage of working-age Americans with jobs rose to 60.3%, the highest ever recorded.

John O. Wilson, senior vice president and chief economist of Bank of America in San Francisco, said the March figures should put to rest any concern that the economy is headed for trouble. He pointed out that the number of unemployed persons actually declined by 3,000 in March.

“This is a clear indication that in March the economy showed more strength, returned to strength from a very weak February,” Wilson said. “The March figures are very strong, positive numbers.”

Growth in Service Sector

Nearly all of the job growth occurred in the service sector, with no change in the number of manufacturing jobs since August.

“The overall situation of the economy is quite encouraging, although the manufacturing center clearly shows the penetration of imports,” said Lynn Reaser, senior economist and vice president of First Interstate Bank Corp. in Los Angeles.

California continued to have a lower civilian unemployment rate than the nation. The civilian jobless rate in California rose slightly, from 6.7%in February to 6.9%in March, still below the national jobless rate, excluding the military, of 7.3%. Unemployment in Los Angeles County dropped to 6.6%from 6.7%.

The number of unemployed Americans who have given up looking for jobs and dropped out of the labor force remained at about 1.3 million. About 8.4 million Americans still in the labor force were unemployed in March, and 1.3 million of them were without work for six months or longer.

Jobless Aid Extended

President Reagan signed into law Friday a bill that will entitle 340,000 workers who have been jobless for more than six months to continue receiving unemployment benefits under a program that otherwise would have expired at the end of last month. The program authorizes an additional 8 to 14 weeks of benefits on top of the 26 weeks that most states provide.

But Reagan persuaded Congress not to renew the extended benefits program for workers who do not already qualify for it. He maintained that the economy is expanding fast enough to accommodate the unemployed.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes interpreted the March unemployment figures as a justification of that view. “Although the rate of unemployment for March remains the same, the size of the jump in new jobs serves as a strong indicator that our economy continues its healthy growth,” Speakes said.

Much of the employment growth in March occurred among adult women, who have taken 56%of the 3 million new jobs created in the last year, said Janet Norwood, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She predicted that the number of adult women entering the labor force will continue to grow.

Blacks Show Gains

Employment for blacks showed some improvement in March, with the jobless rate falling by 1.1 percentage points to 15.2%. But unemployment continued to be about 25%higher among black teen-agers than white youths.

Business and health industry jobs rose by 145,000, construction employment by 130,000 and retail jobs by 80,000 in March. In the stagnant manufacturing sector, Norwood said that steel, textiles, petroleum and leather industries have continued to lose jobs during the recovery.

“Almost all of the job creation is occurring in the service sector,” said Bill Buechner, an economist with the congressional Joint Economic Committee. “The main concern is that the average wage in manufacturing is way above the average wage (in the service sector) and our manufacturing industries are being displaced by imports.”