{"id":4588,"date":"2023-05-05T10:51:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T14:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/markets\/labor-market-shows-surprising-strength-in-april\/"},"modified":"2023-05-05T10:51:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T14:51:27","slug":"labor-market-shows-surprising-strength-in-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=4588","title":{"rendered":"Labor Market Shows Surprising Strength In April"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Before this morning\u2019s BLS jobs report, all indicators were suggesting some slowdown in the labor market.<\/p>\n

The job vacancy rate had slipped to 5.8%, down from its peak of about 7% last year. Unemployment Insurance claims over the past several months have been creeping up, along with reports of rising layoffs. Economists had expected payroll growth to dip under 200,000.<\/p>\n

But the labor market data for April surprised us, yet again. Payroll growth rose by 253,000, showing strength in a variety of sectors – and with professional services, health care and leisure\/hospitality continuing to show strong gains. On the household side, the unemployment rate dipped slightly to 3.4% – a rate as low or lower than anything seen since 1969. The labor force participation rate stayed the same, after inching upwards during the previous three months.<\/p>\n

And wage growth was stronger than it has been over the past several months – on an annualized basis, wages grew 5.7%; over the past two months, they have grown 4.5% – rebounding from some smaller increases seen in earlier months this year. The BLS Employment Cost Index released last week showed wages and benefits growing at nearly 5% in the previous quarter, and this month\u2019s data are consistent with that. The data suggest that employers are still willing to pay higher compensation to attract more workers to their jobs.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on? The labor market seems to defy slowdowns in retail sales, housing and other sectors that we see. One set of changes made sense: BLS revised payroll growth in the previous two months downwards by substantial amounts. In February, payrolls grew by 248,000 rather than the earlier estimate of 326,000; in March, they grew 165,000 rather than 236,000.<\/p>\n

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Over the past three months, we now see that payroll growth has averaged 222,000. Such growth is consistent with a gradual slowing of the labor market below the sizzling rates of growth observed in 2021-22. Wage growth at 4.5% over the past two months is a bit lower than overall compensation increases seen in January-March in the Employment Cost Index.<\/p>\n

Still, the labor market retains surprising strength. Jay Powell and the Fed might pause interest rate growth temporarily, while more data come in – but they might yet conclude that there is more work to done in bringing down inflation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before this morning\u2019s BLS jobs report, all indicators were suggesting some slowdown in the labor market. The job vacancy rate had slipped to 5.8%, down from its peak of about 7% last year. Unemployment Insurance claims over the past several months have been creeping up, along with reports of rising layoffs. Economists had expected payroll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-4588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-markets","tag-featured"],"yoast_head":"\nLabor Market Shows Surprising Strength In April | iFintechWorld<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Before this morning\u2019s BLS jobs report, all indicators were suggesting some slowdown in the labor market. 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