RJ and Makay

While overall unemployment fell to 8.8% in March, the job situation in the financial sector had mixed results. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for the "financial activities supersector," which consists of the Finance and Insurance sector and the Real Estate, Rental, and Leasing sector, show that unemployment in the supersector climbed from 6.9% in February to 7.1% in March.

In number terms, the supersector did add 6,000 jobs in March, though, improving slightly over the last two consecutive months of job losses. At 7,610,000, however, the number of employees in the supersector is still 741,000 shy of its December 2006 peak of 8,351,000 and lower than the headcount at anytime from 2001 through 2010. The supersector's unemployment rate is still more than triple the low of 2.1% it achieved in December 2005.