The official U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.9 percent in April from 9.7 percent in March, but the economy added many more new jobs last month than had been expected.

The economy added 290,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said moments ago. Forecasters expected 162,000 new jobs to be created.

This is a very strong monthly jobs report despite the tick up in the unemployment rate, which will draw all the headlines. Even the increase in the unemployment rate is a good sign. Why? Because it means that discouraged workers — people who actually had given up looking for work — are reentering the job market.

Some 800,000 workers reentered the job market last month. Many of them did not find jobs, so the unemployment rate increased from 9.7 to 9.9 percent. But they’re looking for work again and that’s a strong sign. The Labor Department counts you as unemployed only if you’re jobless and looking for work. If you’re jobless and not looking for work, it counts you as a “discouraged” worker and removes you from the labor market. That can sometimes cause an artificial tick down in the overall unemployment rate.

So today’s takeaway: Don’t focus on the increase of the rate from 9.7 to 9.9 percent. That’s actually a good sign in this instance. Focus on the fact that the economy added 290,000 new jobs last month — and more new jobs were added in February and March, according to revisions also released this morning.

The U.S. unemployment rate is down from the recent high of 10.1 percent in October. The rate is expected to remain near 10 percent for the remainder of this year.

Economists say that in order for substantial, sustainable job growth to occur, the weekly new jobless claims number needs to get down into the low 400,000s or upper 300,000s and stay there. Yesterday, the government reported that 444,000 Americans filed jobless claims last week, the third straight week of declines.

The big news today, of course, will be the stock market. We’ll be watching to see whether it can recover at all from its big plunge yesterday. It may be aided by this better-than-expected jobs report

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