- The latest Labor Department report shows U.S. employers added 177,000 jobs in April.
- National unemployment held steady at 4.2%.
- April job growth blew past estimates that were tempered by ongoing tariff uncertainty.
Job growth remained robust in April, blowing past predictions in spite of swirling economic worries and widespread business sector uncertainty driven by weeks of erratic U.S. international trade policy actions.
U.S. employers added 177,000 jobs in April according to Friday’s Employment Situation Summary from the U.S. Labor Department. The volume is down from March’s 185,000 new positions but well ahead of the 133,000 predicted by Dow Jones and other analysts.
The national unemployment rate held steady at 4.2% in April as did the number of unemployed workers at 7.2 million while labor force participation inched up to 62.6%, according to the report.
That latest available employment readings for Utah showed the state’s unemployment rate in March came in at 3.1%, down from February’s 3.2% rate.
Is a recession coming?
The new, positive national data could serve to ease recession concerns that have risen in recent weeks amid other economic reports reflecting a slowing U.S. economy and inflation once again on the rise.
“We can push recession concerns to another month,” Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, told CNBC. “Job numbers remain very strong, suggesting there was an impressive degree of resilience in the economy in play before the tariff shock.
“The economy will weaken in the coming months but, with this underlying momentum, the U.S. has a decent chance of averting recession if it can step back from the tariff brink in time.”
Employment sectors experiencing the most significant growth last month included health care, transportation and warehousing, financial activities and social assistance, according to the Labor Department.
Amid ongoing public sector labor force reduction efforts by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, federal government employment declined by 9,000 positions in April and is now down by 26,000 jobs since January. The Labor Department notes that federal employees on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay are counted as employed in its data collection.
Upbeat jobs report follows bleak economic growth data
Friday’s jobs data follows a Commerce Department report released earlier this week that found growth in U.S. gross domestic product, a value measure of the total output of the country’s goods and services, fell by 0.3% in the first three months of the year. The negative indicator is an abrupt reversal of the healthy 2.4% uptick in GDP in the final quarter of last year and represents the first backslide in overall U.S. economic growth since the first quarter of 2022.
The report also included data on consumer spending, which rose 1.8% in the first quarter of the year, the lowest quarterly increase since 2023 and inflation as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric. PCE inflation came in at 3.6% over the first three months of the year, spiking from the 2.4% rate for the final quarter of 2024.
Economists had mixed reactions to the GDP report, with most noting that the tariff-induced surge in import activity could prove to be an aberration. But underlying data, including the slowdown in consumer spending and rising inflation, are once again raising recession concerns.
“Maybe some of this negativity is due to a rush to bring in imports before the tariffs go up, but there is simply no way for policy advisors to sugarcoat this. Growth has simply vanished,” Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds, told CNBC.