Catenaa, Friday, May 08, 2026- US Payrolls rose more than expected in April despite the labor market sending up several flags for a potential slowdown this year.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 115,000 for the month, down from the 185,000 created in an unusually strong March, but better than the 55,000 forecast in the Dow Jones consensus estimate.
The unemployment rate held at 4.3%, further proof that the labor market has reached a point where only modest job creation is needed to keep the jobless level steady, given little growth in the labor force.
Average hourly earnings, another closely watched metric of labor market health, came in lower than expected, increasing 0.2% for the month and 3.6% on an annual basis, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.8%.
However, the month also saw another drop in the labor force and a decline in tech-related jobs in the low-hire low-fire environment that has prevailed since the early part of 2025.
The report shows the labor market has been “pretty much stable for a year, year and a half,” Austan Goolsbee, President of the Federal Reserve of Chicago, said in a CNBC interview. “I characterize that we’ve been stable without being good. … The unemployment rate has been stable, the hiring rate has been stable, the layoff rate has been stable, and the vacancy rate has been stable. So, I still think there’s not a lot of evidence that the job market is falling apart.”
Following recent trends, healthcare led with 37,000 new positions, though multiple other sectors also saw gains.
Transportation and warehousing added 30,000, retail rose by 22,000, and social assistance saw a gain of 17,000.
On the downside, information services lost 13,000 jobs, part of a continuing trend that has seen the category down 342,000 jobs since November 2022, coinciding with the rise of artificial intelligence. That has equated to a loss of 11% of jobs during the period.
A broader measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons rose to 8.2%, up 0.2 percentage points.
The household survey, which the bureau uses to calculate the unemployment rate, showed a decline of 226,000 workers as the participation rate declined to 61.8%, the lowest since October 2021.
The so-called real unemployment rate jumped in large part due to a surge in those employed part-time for economic reasons, often referred to as unemployed. The level rose by 445,000 to 4.9 million.
Revisions from prior reports were mixed: The March count rose by 7,000 while the February number moved even lower, down by 23,000 to a loss of 156,000. The initial report put the February job loss at 92,000.
The report comes at a delicate time for the Federal Reserve, which has seen an unusual level of disagreement among officials about monetary policy.
While layoffs have held around their lowest levels in decades, economists increasingly have pointed to slower hiring as the primary source of labor market cooling.
The hard data have been strong, but sentiment indicators show tepid hiring plans in both the manufacturing and services sectors.
