April 2019 NFP = +263K

The April jobs report is out, and it’s a good one. The U.S. economy created 263,000 net new jobs last month. The report for February was revised higher by 23,000, and March was revised upward by 16,000.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.6%. That’s the lowest unemployment rate since December 1969. It’s the lowest peacetime jobless rate in 70 years.

Nonfarm payroll growth easily beat Wall Street expectations of 190,000 and a 3.8% jobless rate.

Average hourly earnings growth held at 3.2% over the past year, a notch below Dow Jones estimates of 3.3%. The monthly gain was 0.2%, below the expected 0.3% increase, bringing the average to $27.77. The average work week also dropped 0.1 hours to 34.4 hours.

Unemployment was last this low in December 1969 when it hit 3.5%. At a time when many economists see a tight labor market, big job growth continues as the economic expansion is just a few months away from being the longest in history.

Posted by on May 3rd, 2019 at 8:37 am


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