The U.S. Labor
Department announced on Friday that nonfarm payrolls increased by 175,000 in April
after an upwardly revised 315,000 increase (from 303,000) in March. This marked
the
weakest monthly gain since October 2023 (+165,000) and was below the average
monthly advance of 242,000 over the prior 12 months.
According to
the report, the largest jobs increases occurred in health care (+56,000), social
assistance (+31,000), and transportation and warehousing (+22,000).
The unemployment
rate inched up to 3.9 per cent from
an unrevised 3.8 per cent in
the prior month.
Economists had predicted
the nonfarm payrolls to rise by 243,000 and the jobless rate to remain unchanged at 3.8 per cent.
The labour
force participation rate held steady at 62.7 per cent in April, while hourly
earnings for private-sector workers grew by 0.2 per cent m-o-m (or $0.07) to $34.75,
following an unrevised 0.3 per cent m-o-m uptick in March. Economists had expected the
average hourly earnings to increase by 0.3 per cent m-o-m in April. Over the
year, the average hourly earnings jumped 3.9 per cent in April, following an unrevised 4.1 per cent climb in the previous month. This represented
the weakest increase since June 2021 (+3.9 per cent). Economists had predicted
the annual wage to surge by 4.0 per cent in April.
The
average workweek slipped
0.1 hour to 34.3 hours last month, marginally below economists'
estimate of 34.4 hours.