According to numbers derived from a survey of businesses, the economy added 160,000 jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday. There were 171,000 jobs created in the private sector, but government shed 11,000 jobs. This marks the 67th consecutive month of job growth. But it was well below the 200,000+ consensus of economic analysts surveyed earlier in the week. Wages rose to 2.5 percent over a year ago.
The official unemployment rate, which the bureau calculates from a different survey and labels U3, remained unchanged at 5.0 percent. That rate isn’t the same for everyone: Adult men: 4.6 percent; Adult women: 4.5 percent ; Whites: 4.3 percent; Blacks: 8.8 percent; Asians: 3.8 percent; Hispanics: 6.1 percent; American Indians: (not counted monthly); Teenagers: 16 percent; (Among teenagers of color, the unemployment rate is significantly higher.) Jeff Cox reports:
"The headline number was definitely disappointing, and all but erases any chance of a rate hike in June," said Chris Gaffney, president of world markets at EverBank. "Without any real wage pressure and the uncertainty of a presidential election in the fall I think the (Federal Open Market Committee) will be forced to sit on their hands until the end of the year. This confirms we will have lower rates for longer — more of the same." [...]
For April, the BLS calculated the number of jobless Americans at 7.9 million, down slightly from March. In addition to U3, the bureau also estimates both unemployment and underemployment in a category it calls U6. This counts people with no job, part-time workers who want a full-time job but can't find one, and some of the nation’s "discouraged" workers. In April, U6 fell to 9.7 percent.
The bureau revised the previously calculated March number of new jobs from 215,000 to 208,000 and the February number from 245,000 to 233,000. A regular feature of each month’s job report, the revisions make use of the more detailed information that becomes available in the two months after the release of the initial report. Each year in February, the bureau makes an annual adjustment to the job numbers for the previous 12 months. These adjustments are usually but not always small.
The civilian workforce in April fell by 362,000, after having risen by 330,000 in March. The employment-population ratio fell to 59.7 percent, and the labor force participation rate fell to 62.8 percent.
Wages for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose 8 cents an hour in April to $25.53. Private sector production and nonsupervisory employees got a boost of 5 cents to $21.45 an hour. As has been the case for the entire period of the economic recovery that began in mid-2009, wage gains remain sluggish, averaging a nominal 2.0-2.3 percent annual rise. April’s gains didn’t do anything to change that.
The BLS "confidence level" in its estimate is plus or minus 105,000 jobs. Which means the "real" number of new jobs created in April was not 160,000 but ranged between 55,000 and 265,000.
Each month, the bureau looks special notice of the job situation for Americans aged 25-54. Of all Americans, people in this group are the most likely of those in any age cohort to have a job or be looking for one. The employment-population ratio for the 25-54 age group reached its all-time high of 81.9 percent in April 2000. When the Great Recession begin in December 2007, the ratio was 79.7 percent. It fell to 74.8 percent in November 2010 and had been rising gradually until a few months ago when its upward trajectory rose more quickly. But in April it fell to 77.7 percent.
ADDITIONAL ASPECTS OF THE APRIL JOB REPORT:
Hours & Wages
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 5 cents an hour to $21.45 in April.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls rose to 34.5 hours in April.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls {{rose 8 cents}} an hour in April to $25.53.
• The manufacturing workweek in April rose to 40.7 hours.
• The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls in April rose 0.1 hour to 33.67 hours.
Job gains and losses in April for selected categories:
• Professional services: + 65,000
• Transportation & warehousing: - 8,500
• Leisure & hospitality: + 33,000
• Information: 0
• Health care & social assistance: + 44,000
• Retail trade: - 3,100
• Construction: + 1,000
• Manufacturing: - 4,000
• Mining and Logging: - 7,000
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in April for the previous 10 years compared with this April’s gain of 160,000.
April 2006: + 183,000
April 2007: + 79,000
April 2008: - 210,000
April 2009: - 686,000
April 2010: + 243,000
April 2011: + 346,000
April 2012: + 75,000
April 2013: + 192,000
April 2014: + 310,000
April 2015: + 251,000