April NFP +288,000

The Labor Department just reported very strong job numbers for April. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 288,000. That’s the biggest gain since January 2012, and it was far more than expectations of 215,000. The unemployment rate fell to 6.3%.

Private payrolls rose by 273,000 and we finally topped the pre-recession peak. The labor force dropped by 800,000 last month. The participation rate fell to 62.8% which is the lowest in 36 years.

For the first time in 66 months, there’s less than 10 million unemployed. Nonfarm payrolls are now 113,000 below the peak from January 2008. If you were to take the jobs-to-population ratio from April 2000, then add 22.4 million people none of whom are working, you would have the jobs-to-pop ratio for April 2014.

Here’s a look at the growth in NFP for the last 32 months along with its trend line.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 2nd, 2014 at 8:36 am

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