[Anna Karagianopoulou]: Unemployment in the United States has fallen to its lowest levels in the last 4 years, reaching 7.6%. But this doesn’t mean that most Americans found jobs. After six months of significant hiring, American employers put the brakes on in March, resulting in the addition of only 88,000 new jobs to the economy of the United States. However, the unemployment rate remained low. Jeff Macke, a financial editor at Yahoo, says that in March, fewer Americans were looking for work. [Jeff Macke]: 500,000 Americans stopped looking for work in March. This is one way to make the unemployment rate appear lower. [Anna Karagianopoulou]: Economists estimate that the decrease in the number of people looking for work is partly due to the increasing average age of the workforce, as well as the growing mismatch between the qualifications employers are looking for and the qualifications the available workers have. There are studies that show an additional 1.5% of unemployed Americans would be working if they had better technical and scientific qualifications. Professor of Economics Michael Hicks also says that older unemployed individuals face a problem. [Michael Hicks]: It’s very hard to be 52 and find yourself unemployed after 30 years in the same job. It’s hard to go back to school. And this is what many Americans are facing today. [Anna Karagianopoulou]: However, the reduction in hiring by American employers should not be surprising, says the former director of the research department of the Federal Reserve of the USA, David Stockton. Particularly after Congress’s failure to reach any agreement to avoid drastic cuts of 85 billion dollars in the federal public sector. [David Stockton]: We’ve gone from a fiscal stimulus to fiscal stagnation. I think the fiscal restraint will show in a weaker labor market in the middle of this year. [Anna Karagianopoulou]: Analysts estimate that the labor market in the US will remain weak until the second half of 2013. Anna Karagianopoulou, VOA, Washington.