Seasonally adjusted employment data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that staffing firms added 30,800 new jobs from March to April (up 1.2%). In a year-to-year comparison, temporary help employment for the month was 7.4% higher than in April 2012.

Nonseasonally adjusted BLS data, which estimate the actual number of jobs in the economy, indicated that the staffing industry added 59,400 new jobs (up 2.3%) from March to April of this year. On a year-to-year basis, there were 7.6% more staffing employees in April than in the same month last year.

“American businesses continue to be very strategic about when and how to increase the size of their work forces,” says Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the American Staffing Association. “Flexible staffing solutions are an important tool during the current period of moderate economic growth.”

Overall U.S. nonfarm payroll employment increased by 165,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate edged down from 7.6% to 7.5%.

Employment growth in the economy was mostly driven by new job creation in professional and business services (+73,000), food services and drinking places (+38,000), retail trade (+29,000), and health care (+19,000).