document: Getting Back to Work : U.S. Employers Hiring , Labor Department Numbers Show Unemployment Drops to 8.8 Percent ; New Jobs Added in Manufacturing , Health Care American companies are adding workers at the fastest pace in five years , new government numbers showed today . According to the Labor Department 's March jobs report , 216,000 jobs were added , bringing unemployment down to 8.8 percent , the lowest rate in two years . Across the country , the stories behind those numbers give new hope that the nation may finally be turning the corner on unemployment . Watch '' `` World News with Diane Sawyer '' '' for more on this story tonight on ABC . Just four months ago , for example , Sharon Walter was out of work , a victim of the recession . Now , she has found work at a Siemens plant in Charlotte , North Carolina , assembling steam turbine engines . '' `` To meet somebody and say , '' `` Well , I 'm unemployed , '' '' it takes something away from you , '' '' Walter said . '' `` Every morning , I get up , I know I have someplace to go . I know I have a job to go to . I 'm going to work hard , it 's appreciated . '' '' Walter is one of 200 skilled workers that Siemens trained and then hired this year , doing everything from driving forklifts to operating cranes . Jobs Added in Variety of Industries Data from the Labor Department shows that the optimistic numbers spread across a variety of industries . In March , 17,000 new jobs were added in manufacturing , 37,000 in health care , and 78,000 jobs in professional and business sectors . For private sector industries , there have now been 13 straight months of growth . '' `` I think fundamentally , our economy is in a much better place than it 's been in many , many years , '' '' said Mark Zandi , chief economist for Moody 's Economy.com . Despite Good News , Many Still Struggling At a job fair in Reno , Nevada , companies have been hiring new workers on the spot . And in Philadelphia , manufacturers like Boathouse Sports are starting to overtake their Asian competitors and start hiring again . '' `` As we look into the next quarter and beyond , we will be adding additional staff , '' '' said Douglas Tibbets , president and CEO of Boathouse Sports . The news is good , but the reality for so many others remains grim . All told , 13 million Americans still do n't have work . That figure is equivalent to the population of Illinois . One of those Americans , Joseph Cappelluzzo , has been out of a job for two years . The father of five from Florida has gone to extreme measures to find work , even standing by the side of the road with a sign . Today , Cappelluzzo has worked enough odd jobs to buy a new house for his family , but he still has no stable employer . '' `` I 'm working six and a half days a week , '' '' Cappelluzzo said . '' `` I 'd work in a bar . I would work in a Laundromat . I would do whatever it took to feed my family . '' ''
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