Payrolls Show Strong Growth but Jobless Rate Rises

Employers added 244,000 jobs in April, more than economists had forecast and an increase from 221,000 in March, the government reported on Friday.

As a measure of how far uphill the economic climb remains, though, the unemployment rate actually nudged up to 9 percent, from 8.8 percent a month earlier. The Labor Department uses a different survey, of households rather than employers, to calculate that rate, which tends to be volatile.

The monthly snapshot of the job market showed that government workers continued to receive pink slips, but the private sector more than picked up the slack, adding 268,000 jobs in April, the most in five years. Hiring was spread broadly, with manufacturing, retail, health care, and leisure and hospitality industries all expanding.

Including some revisions to reflect more hiring in February and March, the nation’s employers have added an average of 192,000 jobs a month this year, compared with just 78,000 monthly last year.

“This is very encouraging for the sustainability of the recovery,” said James F. O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global.

Another brighter sign was among the long-term unemployed. The number of people out of work for more than six months eased to 5.8 million, its lowest level since October 2009. Still, 13.7 million people remained without work and were still looking.

Earlier in the week, a number of reports indicated that the economy had stumbled in the days since the Labor Department compiled its survey. The biggest worry was a rise in new claims for unemployment insurance, and a survey of companies showed a slowdown in new orders and hiring.

Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist with the Economic Outlook Group, has spent most of the last year as a strong optimist, but sounds increasingly cautious.

“There are just too many economic indicators that point to an economy that has been slowing,” said Mr. Baumohl, noting last week’s report that output slumped to 1.8 percent in the first quarter of the year. “It almost looks like a bull that’s charging through a crowd, utterly impervious to what’s in front of it.

“Regretfully, I think the pace of hiring will slow down in May and June,” he added. “I think in this case the job market is a lagging indicator, and I think it will probably fall off as well, as more signs point to a weakening economy.”

President Obama, speaking at Allison Transmission, a maker of transmissions that is increasingly moving into hybrid products, hailed the job numbers while acknowledging headwinds from high gas prices and interruptions caused by the earthquake in Japan. “There are always going to be some ups and downs like these as we come out of a recession,” he said. “But the fact is that we are still making progress.

“And that proves how resilient the American economy is, and how resilient the American worker is, and that we can take a hit and we can keep on going forward.”?

Manufacturing has been one of the surprising pillars of the recovery, adding back 250,000 of the 2.3 million jobs it lost during the recession. In April, it grew by 29,000 jobs, up from 22,000 in March.

A weakened dollar has helped exports, and companies are describing an increase in demand at home. Quality Float Works, a family-owned company that makes floating metal balls and valves in Schaumburg, Ill., shrank by six workers during the recession. Since the beginning of the year, it has hired two people and aims to hire two more.

Jason W. Speer, vice president and general manager, said that although high prices for energy and raw materials had temporarily made the firm hesitate, “we’ve been getting long-term commitments from our customers, and we have felt fairly comfortable.” He added: “I can easily see hiring two or more before the end of the year, if we have no more bumps.”

Economists who saw signs of lasting momentum said they did not believe a few hiccups in coming months would derail the recovery this time. “I do view this impending softness as a temporary response to the rise in oil prices,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at the High Frequency Economics research firm, “not a fundamental reversal.”

Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, said several signs pointed to continuing strength in hiring, including slower productivity gains after a fairly sharp run-up. After companies squeeze all they can out of their existing workers, they need to add more. “This is clearly the track you want to be on to plow your way,” Mr. Goolsbee said.

Average hourly earnings increased by 3 cents, to $22.95, and the average workweek was flat at 34.3 hours. Heather Boushey, senior economist at the liberal Center for American Progress, said she was concerned that neither wages nor hours were moving strongly upward, as would be expected if companies were wringing all they could out of their existing workers. “We’re not out of the woods,” she said. “As much as I think it would be such a relief to say, ‘Hey, this is the out-of-the-woods report.’?”

Among job seekers, the least educated, African-Americans and teenagers continue to have the highest unemployment rates. For workers in the 55-and-over age group, the average duration of unemployment spiked to 53.6 weeks, compared with 39.4 weeks for those younger.

A weak area was government — local, state and federal — where the work force contracted by 24,000 jobs. Construction added 5,000 jobs, though mostly because of gains in heavy and civil engineering, probably helped by the remaining federal stimulus dollars devoted to infrastructure projects like highways. Most other segments of construction, including residential, shrank.

Temporary help, which has been strong, lost 2,300 jobs. Executives of two temporary services companies, Tig Gilliam, chief executive of the Adecco Group North America, and Jorge Perez, senior vice president of North America for Manpower, said companies that had relied on contract workers early in the recovery were now hiring.

Amanda Fisher, who was laid off from her hostess job at a high-end restaurant in New York City last October, applied for work with Manpower in November. After a couple of jobs in retail, she took an assignment as a customer service representative at a furniture company. Last month, the company offered her a full-time job with benefits.

“I have a real grown-up job,” said Ms. Fisher, 21, who said she spent eight months out of work and was intermittently homeless early in the recession. Several of her friends, she said, were still “in terrible situations.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 6, 2011

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated, in one reference, the reason for the increase in the unemployment rate. As the article noted elsewhere, the rate was based on a household survey, which showed a decline in employment; it did not reflect an increase in the number of job seekers.

View the original article here

Payrolls Show Strong Growth but Jobless Rate Rises

Employers added 244,000 jobs in April, more than economists had forecast and an increase from 221,000 in March, the government reported on Friday.

As a measure of how far uphill the economic climb remains, though, the unemployment rate actually nudged up to 9 percent, from 8.8 percent a month earlier. The Labor Department uses a different survey, of households rather than employers, to calculate that rate, which tends to be volatile.

The monthly snapshot of the job market showed that government workers continued to receive pink slips, but the private sector more than picked up the slack, adding 268,000 jobs in April, the most in five years. Hiring was spread broadly, with manufacturing, retail, health care, and leisure and hospitality industries all expanding.

Including some revisions to reflect more hiring in February and March, the nation’s employers have added an average of 192,000 jobs a month this year, compared with just 78,000 monthly last year.

“This is very encouraging for the sustainability of the recovery,” said James F. O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global.

Another brighter sign was among the long-term unemployed. The number of people out of work for more than six months eased to 5.8 million, its lowest level since October 2009. Still, 13.7 million people remained without work and were still looking.

Earlier in the week, a number of reports indicated that the economy had stumbled in the days since the Labor Department compiled its survey. The biggest worry was a rise in new claims for unemployment insurance, and a survey of companies showed a slowdown in new orders and hiring.

Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist with the Economic Outlook Group, has spent most of the last year as a strong optimist, but sounds increasingly cautious.

“There are just too many economic indicators that point to an economy that has been slowing,” said Mr. Baumohl, noting last week’s report that output slumped to 1.8 percent in the first quarter of the year. “It almost looks like a bull that’s charging through a crowd, utterly impervious to what’s in front of it.

“Regretfully, I think the pace of hiring will slow down in May and June,” he added. “I think in this case the job market is a lagging indicator, and I think it will probably fall off as well, as more signs point to a weakening economy.”

President Obama, speaking at Allison Transmission, a maker of transmissions that is increasingly moving into hybrid products, hailed the job numbers while acknowledging headwinds from high gas prices and interruptions caused by the earthquake in Japan. “There are always going to be some ups and downs like these as we come out of a recession,” he said. “But the fact is that we are still making progress.

“And that proves how resilient the American economy is, and how resilient the American worker is, and that we can take a hit and we can keep on going forward.”?

Manufacturing has been one of the surprising pillars of the recovery, adding back 250,000 of the 2.3 million jobs it lost during the recession. In April, it grew by 29,000 jobs, up from 22,000 in March.

A weakened dollar has helped exports, and companies are describing an increase in demand at home. Quality Float Works, a family-owned company that makes floating metal balls and valves in Schaumburg, Ill., shrank by six workers during the recession. Since the beginning of the year, it has hired two people and aims to hire two more.

Jason W. Speer, vice president and general manager, said that although high prices for energy and raw materials had temporarily made the firm hesitate, “we’ve been getting long-term commitments from our customers, and we have felt fairly comfortable.” He added: “I can easily see hiring two or more before the end of the year, if we have no more bumps.”

Economists who saw signs of lasting momentum said they did not believe a few hiccups in coming months would derail the recovery this time. “I do view this impending softness as a temporary response to the rise in oil prices,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at the High Frequency Economics research firm, “not a fundamental reversal.”

Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, said several signs pointed to continuing strength in hiring, including slower productivity gains after a fairly sharp run-up. After companies squeeze all they can out of their existing workers, they need to add more. “This is clearly the track you want to be on to plow your way,” Mr. Goolsbee said.

Average hourly earnings increased by 3 cents, to $22.95, and the average workweek was flat at 34.3 hours. Heather Boushey, senior economist at the liberal Center for American Progress, said she was concerned that neither wages nor hours were moving strongly upward, as would be expected if companies were wringing all they could out of their existing workers. “We’re not out of the woods,” she said. “As much as I think it would be such a relief to say, ‘Hey, this is the out-of-the-woods report.’?”

Among job seekers, the least educated, African-Americans and teenagers continue to have the highest unemployment rates. For workers in the 55-and-over age group, the average duration of unemployment spiked to 53.6 weeks, compared with 39.4 weeks for those younger.

A weak area was government — local, state and federal — where the work force contracted by 24,000 jobs. Construction added 5,000 jobs, though mostly because of gains in heavy and civil engineering, probably helped by the remaining federal stimulus dollars devoted to infrastructure projects like highways. Most other segments of construction, including residential, shrank.

Temporary help, which has been strong, lost 2,300 jobs. Executives of two temporary services companies, Tig Gilliam, chief executive of the Adecco Group North America, and Jorge Perez, senior vice president of North America for Manpower, said companies that had relied on contract workers early in the recovery were now hiring.

Amanda Fisher, who was laid off from her hostess job at a high-end restaurant in New York City last October, applied for work with Manpower in November. After a couple of jobs in retail, she took an assignment as a customer service representative at a furniture company. Last month, the company offered her a full-time job with benefits.

“I have a real grown-up job,” said Ms. Fisher, 21, who said she spent eight months out of work and was intermittently homeless early in the recession. Several of her friends, she said, were still “in terrible situations.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 6, 2011

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated, in one reference, the reason for the increase in the unemployment rate. As the article noted elsewhere, the rate was based on a household survey, which showed a decline in employment; it did not reflect an increase in the number of job seekers.

View the original article here

Asthma Rate Rises Sharply in U.S., Government Says

According to the report, from 2001 to 2009 the prevalence of asthma increased among all demographic groups studied, including men, women, whites, blacks and Hispanics. Black children are most acutely affected: the study found that 17 percent of black children — nearly one in five — had a diagnosis of asthma in 2009, up from 11.4 percent, or about one in nine, in 2001.

While officials at the Centers for Disease Control emphasized that asthma could be controlled if managed effectively, they were at a loss to explain why it had become more widespread even as important triggers like cigarette smoking had become less common.

“We don’t know exactly why the number is going up, but, importantly, we know there are measures individuals with asthma can take to control symptoms,” said Ileana Arias, principal deputy director of the centers.

Agency officials declined to comment on budgetary proposals that would reduce money for the National Asthma Control Program.

Prevention depends on educating patients about appropriate use of medications and ensuring that each patient has a written medical plan to control asthma, but the report found that only one-third of patients had been given a plan and only about half had been advised to make changes to eliminate asthma triggers at home, school and work.

Paul Garbe, chief of the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch at the centers, noted the success of several state public health initiatives, including one in Connecticut in which asthma educators and environmental assessors were sent into homes to advise patients on what changes needed to be made and how to manage the disease.

The report found that the overall prevalence of asthma increased to 8.2 percent in 2009, when 24.6 million cases were diagnosed, from 7.3 percent in 2001, when 20.1 million cases were diagnosed — a 12.3 percent increase. Among the most affected were children, 9.6 percent of whom had asthma, and especially poor children, of whom 13.5 percent had it.

While 7.7 percent of adults were found to have asthma, the rate was higher among women (9.7 percent) and among poor adults of both sexes (10.6 percent).

Asthma costs grew to about $56 billion in 2007, up from about $53 billion in 2002, the report said, though annual deaths attributed to asthma declined to about 3,500 in 2007, from a peak of about 5,500 deaths in 1996.

Researchers are investigating several potential causes for the increase in asthma, including exposure to various allergens, traffic exhaust fumes, pesticides and certain plastics, as well as factors like obesity and diet that may play a role, said Dr. Rachel L. Miller, director of the asthma project at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

“There’s no easy singular explanation,” Dr. Miller said. “The more we study this, the more it raises a lot of questions. It’s not a straightforward puzzle at all.”

 

Asthma Rate Rises Sharply in U.S., Government Says

According to the report, from 2001 to 2009 the prevalence of asthma increased among all demographic groups studied, including men, women, whites, blacks and Hispanics. Black children are most acutely affected: the study found that 17 percent of black children — nearly one in five — had a diagnosis of asthma in 2009, up from 11.4 percent, or about one in nine, in 2001.

While officials at the Centers for Disease Control emphasized that asthma could be controlled if managed effectively, they were at a loss to explain why it had become more widespread even as important triggers like cigarette smoking had become less common.

“We don’t know exactly why the number is going up, but, importantly, we know there are measures individuals with asthma can take to control symptoms,” said Ileana Arias, principal deputy director of the centers.

Agency officials declined to comment on budgetary proposals that would reduce money for the National Asthma Control Program.

Prevention depends on educating patients about appropriate use of medications and ensuring that each patient has a written medical plan to control asthma, but the report found that only one-third of patients had been given a plan and only about half had been advised to make changes to eliminate asthma triggers at home, school and work.

Paul Garbe, chief of the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch at the centers, noted the success of several state public health initiatives, including one in Connecticut in which asthma educators and environmental assessors were sent into homes to advise patients on what changes needed to be made and how to manage the disease.

The report found that the overall prevalence of asthma increased to 8.2 percent in 2009, when 24.6 million cases were diagnosed, from 7.3 percent in 2001, when 20.1 million cases were diagnosed — a 12.3 percent increase. Among the most affected were children, 9.6 percent of whom had asthma, and especially poor children, of whom 13.5 percent had it.

While 7.7 percent of adults were found to have asthma, the rate was higher among women (9.7 percent) and among poor adults of both sexes (10.6 percent).

Asthma costs grew to about $56 billion in 2007, up from about $53 billion in 2002, the report said, though annual deaths attributed to asthma declined to about 3,500 in 2007, from a peak of about 5,500 deaths in 1996.

Researchers are investigating several potential causes for the increase in asthma, including exposure to various allergens, traffic exhaust fumes, pesticides and certain plastics, as well as factors like obesity and diet that may play a role, said Dr. Rachel L. Miller, director of the asthma project at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

“There’s no easy singular explanation,” Dr. Miller said. “The more we study this, the more it raises a lot of questions. It’s not a straightforward puzzle at all.”

 

Chevron Profit Rises as Unrest Lifts Oil Prices

 

The Chevron Corporation said Friday that its first-quarter profit rose 36 percent as economic growth and supply disruptions drove crude prices above $100 a barrel.

Net income rose to $6.21 billion, or $3.09 a share, from $4.55 billion, or $2.27, a year earlier, Chevron said. Sales rose 25 percent, to $60.3 billion.

Global demand for petroleum-derived fuels rose 2.9 percent during the first quarter, led by growth in China, Brazil and India, according to the International Energy Agency. Oil futures traded in New York climbed 20 percent to average $94.60 a barrel, driven in part by the civil unrest in North Africa and the Middle East that has imperiled crude supplies.

Stock in Chevron, which is based in San Ramon, Calif., rose 63 cents, to $109.44 a share.

Profit from the company’s oil and natural gas business increased 27 percent to $5.98 billion as higher commodity prices offset an output decline of less than 1 percent. Chevron said it pumped the equivalent of 2.76 million barrels of crude during the period, down from 2.78 million a year earlier.

Chevron’s refineries earned $622 million, more than three times the profit of the first quarter of 2010.

 

Storms’ Toll Rises as Scale of Damage Becomes Clear

The death toll, including those who were killed by storms earlier in the week in Arkansas, reached 339. On Friday evening, Alabama emergency officials announced that the state’s death toll had reached 238, a jump of 28 in one day, adding that 21 people were still missing.

Power remained out for hundreds of thousands throughout the South, rendering gas stations, grocery stores and banks useless. Fifteen hundred people were staying in more than 65 Red Cross shelters, a fraction of those who were left homeless but an indication of the numbers who are now destitute.

So far in Alabama, 654 families have been displaced from public or government-assisted housing units, according to an initial count by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Red Cross, with an eye toward the mental health issues that will surely develop in the hard days and weeks ahead, has dispatched hundreds of volunteers trained to offer psychological first aid.

Mr. Obama, who visited Tuscaloosa with his wife, Michelle, gave a sense of the scale of the disaster after a ride through Alberta, a neighborhood that was turned into a jagged wasteland.

“I’ve never seen devastation like this,” he said.

But, echoing the volunteers who have come in such high numbers that they are being turned away in some areas, Mr. Obama turned the focus toward the work ahead.

“We can’t bring those who have been lost back,” he said. “But the property damage, which is obviously extensive, that’s something that we can do something about.”

The White House announced on Friday afternoon that five cabinet members, including the secretaries of agriculture, housing and homeland security, would be traveling to Alabama and Mississippi on Sunday.

Mr. Obama declared a major disaster in Alabama on Thursday night, an action that makes federal financing available for individuals, businesses and state and local governments.

This federal money is mainly intended to cover uninsured losses, and can help individuals obtain some rebuilding assistance and cities replace public buildings. Insurance claims are already growing exponentially, and could approach $1 billion, said Ragan Ingram, chief of staff at the Alabama Department of Insurance.

Meanwhile, emergency workers in the hardest-hit states of Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee were toiling on urgent needs, some of them almost cruel in their complexity. The tornado damaged two water tanks in Tuscaloosa, necessitating a boil-water advisory in much of the city — including parts of it that do not have electricity. The emergency operations centers in three of the affected counties have no power; in two of those there is no telephone service either. The countywide 911 system in Walker County is also down, according to the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.

About 1,000 workers were trying to restore electricity to nearly 260,000 customers of Alabama Power.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s electricity production system, which sells to seven states, lost more than 200 towers and other structures to the storm and left nearly 700,000 customers without power across several states. By the afternoon, power was again running through high-voltage lines that stretch across 21 of the damaged towers, but 561,000 customers were still without electricity. It will likely not be restored until later next week, and the company is facing weeks of work and millions in repair costs.

“This is a historic outage,” said Scott Brooks, a spokesman.

It is too early to begin calculating the storm’s economic impact, with some major employers, like auto plants, temporarily closed and some small businesses blown away altogether. But one indication of the scale of destruction, as well as the complicated challenges of the response, is Alabama’s $5 billion poultry industry.

The industry, which is mostly located in the northern counties that were hit hardest, processes 20 million broiler chickens a week and is one of the nation’s top three producers. At least 714 poultry houses — each of which can hold up to 30,000 chickens — have been damaged or destroyed.

Millions more chickens might be without water for extended periods and were seen as likely to die. Those in damaged facilities will have to be destroyed and disposed of according to state law, which allows for burying or burning carcasses.

That alone will be a challenge, said John McMillan, the state agriculture commissioner.

“Nobody’s got an incinerator big enough to take care of 20,000 or 30,000 of them at one time, and that’s what we will have in many, many cases,” Mr. McMillan said.

Early in the morning two teams from the Tuscaloosa Fire Department set out with “human remains detection” dogs to scour areas of the city that were hit hardest: the housing projects at Rosedale Court and the largely poor neighborhood of Alberta, both of which were flattened by the enormous tornado that rolled northeastward through town.

They were search and rescue teams but held few illusions about what they were looking for — the dogs that specialize in finding survivors were not the ones the city sought.

The team in Alberta waited patiently as a white Labrador retriever named Jody from North Mississippi Search and Rescue sniffed around the giant piles of debris. She indicated interest, as the term of art puts it, in three places, and a worker began using an excavator to lift up fallen trees, walls and mounds of jumbled debris to see what was underneath.

For hours, searchers did not find anything. But given the thoroughness of the devastation, it seemed inevitable that the team would find at least one body. And indeed, at around 5:30 p.m., in another part of Alberta, they did.

Campbell Robertson reported from Tuscaloosa, and Kim Severson from Atlanta. Kevin Sack and Robbie Brown contributed reporting from Tuscaloosa.

 

Defying Doubters, AT&T Profit Rises 39%

 

AT&T, the nation’s largest telecommunications company, reported a 39 percent increase in its first-quarter profit on Wednesday, despite losing the exclusive rights to sell the iPhone in the United States midway through the period.

The company posted net income of $3.4 billion, or 57 cents a share, up from $2.5 billion, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue climbed more than 2 percent, to $31.2 billion from $30.5 billion.

AT&T’s income met Wall Street forecasts while its revenue was slightly better than the forecast for $31.26 billion, but the company’s stock fell 18 cents, to $30.13 a share.

AT&T said it activated 3.6 million iPhone accounts during the period, nearly a million more than it activated a year earlier, easing concerns that Verizon, which began selling the iPhone in February, would cut into its market share immediately.

Nearly a quarter of the new iPhone subscribers were new to AT&T. The company also said that the number of subscribers who left the carrier stayed roughly the same as last year. In addition, AT&T added two million wireless subscribers in the quarter, a slight increase from the 1.9 million that it added in the first quarter a year earlier. AT&T’s overall pool of subscribers, which includes cable and land line customers, rose to 97.5 million, a 12 percent increase from a year earlier.

“We entered this quarter and this year with questions and uncertainty, in part related to the end of the iPhone exclusivity and its impact,” said Richard Lindner, the chief financial officer of AT&T, during a call to analysts and investors. “Hopefully we’ve answered those questions.”

Ralph de la Vega, the company’s chief mobility officer, said AT&T’s marketing push, which included commercials that highlighted technical limitations of Verizon’s CDMA network that do not allow smartphone owners to make voice calls and simultaneously perform data functions like browsing the Web, as being instrumental in retaining subscribers.

The company also attributed the popularity of connected devices like tablet computers, Kindles and personal Wi-Fi hot spots, as lifting the company’s profits. AT&T and third-party retailers sold 421,000 of those during the quarter, although the vast majority of those sales were iPad 3Gs, which made up 322,000 of those sales.

But analysts said it might be too soon to determine what the overall impact of the Verizon iPhone will be on AT&T.

“Is this as bad as it gets or will the real impact come only later with the iPhone 5,” wrote Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein Research, in a note to investors.

The fifth-generation of the iPhone, which some speculate could be introduced by Apple in the fall, might be the true litmus test for the carriers, who will have to compete for customers whose current contracts are expiring as well as those intending to upgrade.

Mr. Moffett noted that while AT&T did, however, beat analysts’ expectations that it would lose about 50,000 of its contract subscribers, adding instead 62,000 contract customers, the figure was down from the same period a year earlier, when AT&T gained 512,000 new customers on contract.

Charles S. Golvin, a wireless industry analyst at Forrester Research, said the majority of the growth in the wireless industry stemmed from people who have never had a smartphone before.

“At this point, there aren’t any new contract customers in the United States,” he said. “It’s all about smartphone newcomers and stealing customers away from their competitors.” He noted that for the time being AT&T was still selling an older version of the iPhone, the 3GS, for $49, which might be behind the surge in iPhone activations for AT&T.

“There is something really appealing to someone who has never had a smartphone before to be able to get one for $50,” he said. But once the iPhone 5 arrives, he said, “we’ll really see how much customers care about the network they are on.”

 

Defying Doubters, AT&T Profit Rises 39%

AT&T, the nation’s largest telecommunications company, reported a 39 percent increase in its first-quarter profit on Wednesday, despite losing the exclusive rights to sell the iPhone in the United States midway through the period.

The company posted net income of $3.4 billion, or 57 cents a share, up from $2.5 billion, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue climbed more than 2 percent, to $31.2 billion from $30.5 billion.

AT&T’s income met Wall Street forecasts while its revenue was slightly better than the forecast for $31.26 billion, but the company’s stock fell 18 cents, to $30.13 a share.

AT&T said it activated 3.6 million iPhone accounts during the period, nearly a million more than it activated a year earlier, easing concerns that Verizon, which began selling the iPhone in February, would cut into its market share immediately.

Nearly a quarter of the new iPhone subscribers were new to AT&T. The company also said that the number of subscribers who left the carrier stayed roughly the same as last year. In addition, AT&T added two million wireless subscribers in the quarter, a slight increase from the 1.9 million that it added in the first quarter a year earlier. AT&T’s overall pool of subscribers, which includes cable and land line customers, rose to 97.5 million, a 12 percent increase from a year earlier.

“We entered this quarter and this year with questions and uncertainty, in part related to the end of the iPhone exclusivity and its impact,” said Richard Lindner, the chief financial officer of AT&T, during a call to analysts and investors. “Hopefully we’ve answered those questions.”

Ralph de la Vega, the company’s chief mobility officer, said AT&T’s marketing push, which included commercials that highlighted technical limitations of Verizon’s CDMA network that do not allow smartphone owners to make voice calls and simultaneously perform data functions like browsing the Web, as being instrumental in retaining subscribers.

The company also attributed the popularity of connected devices like tablet computers, Kindles and personal Wi-Fi hot spots, as lifting the company’s profits. AT&T and third-party retailers sold 421,000 of those during the quarter, although the vast majority of those sales were iPad 3Gs, which made up 322,000 of those sales.

But analysts said it might be too soon to determine what the overall impact of the Verizon iPhone will be on AT&T.

“Is this as bad as it gets or will the real impact come only later with the iPhone 5,” wrote Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein Research, in a note to investors.

The fifth-generation of the iPhone, which some speculate could be introduced by Apple in the fall, might be the true litmus test for the carriers, who will have to compete for customers whose current contracts are expiring as well as those intending to upgrade.

Mr. Moffett noted that while AT&T did, however, beat analysts’ expectations that it would lose about 50,000 of its contract subscribers, adding instead 62,000 contract customers, the figure was down from the same period a year earlier, when AT&T gained 512,000 new customers on contract.

Charles S. Golvin, a wireless industry analyst at Forrester Research, said the majority of the growth in the wireless industry stemmed from people who have never had a smartphone before.

“At this point, there aren’t any new contract customers in the United States,” he said. “It’s all about smartphone newcomers and stealing customers away from their competitors.” He noted that for the time being AT&T was still selling an older version of the iPhone, the 3GS, for $49, which might be behind the surge in iPhone activations for AT&T.

“There is something really appealing to someone who has never had a smartphone before to be able to get one for $50,” he said. But once the iPhone 5 arrives, he said, “we’ll really see how much customers care about the network they are on.”

 

Japanese Officials on Defensive as Nuclear Alert Level Rises

  A volunteer in Ofunato, Japan, cleaned photographs that were found in the tsunami debris.

TOKYO — Japanese officials struggled through the day on Tuesday to explain why it had taken them a month to disclose large-scale releases of radioactive material in mid-March at a crippled nuclear power plant, as the government and an electric utility disagreed on the extent of continuing problems there.

A policeman watched colleagues prepare to transport a body by van in Minamisoma, Japan, on Thursday, inside a deserted nuclear evacuation zone.

The government announced Tuesday morning that it had raised its rating of the severity of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to 7, the worst on an international scale, from 5. Officials said that the reactor had released one-tenth as much radioactive material as the Chernobyl accident in 1986, but still qualified as a 7 according to a complex formula devised by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Japan’s new assessment was based largely on computer models showing very heavy emissions of radioactive iodine and cesium from March 14 to 16, just after the earthquake and tsunami rendered the plant’s emergency cooling system inoperative. The nearly monthlong delay in acknowledging the extent of these emissions is a fresh example of confused data and analysis from the Japanese, and put the authorities on the defensive about whether they have delayed or blocked the release of information to avoid alarming the public.

Seiji Shiroya, a commissioner of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, an independent government panel that oversees the country’s nuclear industry, said that the government had delayed issuing data on the extent of the radiation releases because of concern that the margins of error had been large in initial computer models. But he also suggested a public policy reason for having kept quiet.

“Some foreigners fled the country even when there appeared to be little risk,” he said. “If we immediately decided to label the situation as Level 7, we could have triggered a panicked reaction.”

The Japanese media, which has a reputation for passivity but has become more aggressive in response to public unhappiness about the nuclear accident, questioned government leaders through the day about what the government knew about the accident and when it knew it.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan gave a nationally televised speech and press conference in the early evening to call for national rebuilding, but ended up defending his government’s handling of information about the accident.

“What I can say for the information I obtained — of course the government is very large, so I don’t have all the information — is that no information was ever suppressed or hidden after the accident,” he said. “There are various ways of looking at this, and I know there are opinions saying that information could have been disclosed faster. However, as the head of the government, I never hid any information because it was inconvenient for us.”

Junichi Matsumoto, a senior nuclear power executive from the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, fanned public fears about radiation when he said at a separate news conference on Tuesday morning that the radiation release from Daiichi could, in time, surpass levels seen in 1986.

“The radiation leak has not stopped completely, and our concern is that it could eventually exceed Chernobyl,” Mr. Matsumoto said.

But Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director general of Japan’s nuclear regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in an interview on Tuesday evening that he did not know how the company had come up with its estimate. “I cannot understand their position,” he said.

He speculated that Tokyo Electric was being “prudent and thinking about the worst-case scenario,” adding, “I think they don’t want to be seen as optimistic.”

Mr. Nishiyama said that his agency did not expect another big escape of radiation from Daiichi, saying that “almost all” the material that is going to escape has already come out. He said that the rate of radiation release had peaked in the early days after the March 11 earthquake, and that the rate of radiation had dropped by 90 percent since then.

The peak release in emissions of radioactive particles took place following hydrogen explosions at three reactors, as technicians desperately tried to pump in seawater to keep the uranium fuel rods cool, and bled radioactive gas from the reactors in order to make room for the seawater.

Mr. Nishiyama took pains to say — and other nuclear experts agreed — that the Japanese accident posed fewer health risks than Chernobyl.