THE ECONOMY: Snapback

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Unemployment, the 1958 recession's lingering hangover, faded fast last month to the lowest total (3,625,000) and the lowest percentage (5.3%) since December 1957. Workers went back on payrolls in April at twice the normal seasonal rate, reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics this week. No fewer than 735,000 moved from the unemployed list to jobs, 452,000 of them married men in the vital family breadwinner category. The recovering economy also brought enough additional workers (mainly young people and women) into the labor force to boost total employment by 1,200,000 to 65 million, biggest April working force in U.S. history.

At the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s unemployment rally in Washington last month. Labor Secretary James Mitchell promised to publicly eat his hat if October figures did not drop unemployment to 3,000,000 and raise employment to 67 million. Still to go: six months, a rise of 2,000,000 employed and a cut of 625,000 unemployed. It began to look as though Jim Mitchell's hat was safe.