Jobless Rate Hits Lowest Level Since September 2008

(CBS) -- New job numbers out today show the biggest monthly hiring surge in two years.

U.S. employers added 288,000 jobs in April, and the jobless rate dropped to 6.3 percent -- the lowest since September 2008.

CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker takes a look at who's been doing the hiring in Chicago.

It's training day at Rocketmiles. The new startup that rewards travelers for booking hotels has hired 10 new people in the last six months. Some, like Matt Athanasiou, are fresh off the unemployment rolls.

"I'm super grateful this worked out," he says. "It took three months to get the job and by the third month, you start to want to give up."

Not giving up puts Athanasious on a list of some 288,000 new workers recently hired across the country. Employment expert Tom Gimbel says weather is a factor in the hiring uptick.

"We're seeing is the economy starting to get optimistic with the summer. The bad weather's over, and we're seeing business start to get better. Companies are optimistic about what's going on and they're bullish," he says.

Gimbel says the new workers can be found in numerous industries, from construction, manufacturing and marketing to human resources, education, engineering and start-ups.

If you're interested in getting a job in the start-up industry, Rocketmiles usually posts its positions on a website called builtinchicago.org.

In fact, that's a very popular website to find jobs with new start-ups in Chicago.