NEW YORK — The Department of Homeland Security reported Monday that unemployment is at its lowest level in nearly a decade.
The government said it expects the number of people seeking jobs to decline this year.
But the unemployment rate fell to 6.9 percent from 7.6 percent last month, the lowest rate since June 2009.
The unemployment rate for all Americans, which includes discouraged workers and those who are looking for a new job, also dropped to 6 percent from 6.8 percent.
It remains well below the peak reached in May 2009.
DHS said the jobless rate dropped to 7.5 percent from 8.1 percent in April, the highest rate since February 2009.
It said the number seeking work dropped by almost 700,000 to 1.5 million from 2.2 million in March.
That represents a decrease of about 300,000 people.
DHS is reporting the jobs report Thursday.
The department said that more than 11 million Americans, or 1 in 4 Americans, are actively seeking work.
The agency expects that figure to rise as the unemployment numbers fall.
The jobless are continuing to drop, but at a slower pace than expected.
DHS’ unemployment rate dropped from 6 percent in February to 5.9 in March, the department said.
The number of Americans looking for work is down by more than 1.6 million since February.
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said that while the economy added 209,000 jobs in March and a further 150,000 in April it also added nearly 50,000 fewer jobs than previously thought in May.
That means that the unemployment figure is down for the month of May by nearly 2 million, the labor report said.
Still, the job report will give a good sense of how the economy is performing over the past month, said Bill Zandberg, director of economic research at Moody’s Analytics.
In addition to the new jobs report, the agency reported that the number and wage growth rate of the private sector have been improving over the last year.
While the private economy has grown slightly more slowly over the first three months of the year, it is now more robust than in any of the previous five years.
The private sector is growing by an average of 4.1% over the period, the Labor Department said.
It has gained about 2.4 million jobs since the first quarter of the last decade.
For the year through March, more than 4.3 million new jobs were added to the private workforce, the most since the end of the recession.
Zandberger said the private-sector gains over the same time period have not come from the same kinds of job creation that are driving the growth of the overall economy.
For example, the number in the private private sector increased by only 4.5% in the last quarter of 2009.
He said that has to do with the recession and the recovery.
The public-sector jobs growth has been much stronger, but the private growth has stalled, he said.
He noted that some of the recovery has come in the form of private-school and health-care jobs, which have been the biggest gains.
However, Zandber said that the growth in private- and public- sector jobs has been offset by the declining numbers in the civilian workforce, which is the other key sector to consider.
He also pointed out that more people are working part-time jobs and are looking to work full-time.
Those are the jobs that are expected to add the most jobs in the future.
Zareberg said that in the next few months, the unemployment data will be a good gauge of how far along the economy has come.
If the job numbers don’t improve, there will be more pressure on the federal government to continue making the investments that will keep the economy moving forward, he predicted.
