(CNN) - The jobs recovery is still chugging along, although at this pace it will still take years to get back to a pre-recession labor market.
The U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs in April, the Department of Labor said Friday.
While that's an encouraging sign that the economy is continuing to improve, the unemployment rate told a different story. That number, which comes from a survey of households, shows fewer Americans are joining the labor force and fewer people report they're employed. These trends led to the unemployment rate falling to 6.3%, its lowest level since September 2008.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erica Groshen noted that the data suggest the decline in the labor force was primarily "due mostly to fewer people entering the labor force than usual, rather than to more people exiting the labor force."
