2023-05-05 12:56:58
Last month, 253,000 jobs were created, compared to 165,000 in March.
By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted update
The job market in UNITED STATES unexpectedly rebounded in April, with job creation up and the unemployment rate down, far from the expected slowdown in the fight once morest high inflation. In April, 253,000 jobs were created, the Labor Department announced on Friday, compared to 165,000 in March – a figure revised down sharply.
Employment remains up in business services, health care, recreation and hospitality, as well as in social assistance, details the statement from the Department of Labor. As for the unemployment rate, it fell further, and fell to 3.4% (-0.1 point), as in January, its lowest level since 1969. Analysts had forecast 180,000 job creations and an unemployment rate at 3.6%, according to several consensuses.
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A decline in job creation and a rise in the unemployment rate are nevertheless expected to manage to curb l’inflation. This, still very strong, had been fueled, among other things, by the significant growth in wages linked to the lack of manpower. Wages thus continued to climb in April, but a little more slowly. The increase in the average hourly wage is 4.4% over one year, to 33.36 dollars, once morest 4.6% last month.
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“Strength and Stability”
«Data shows the labor market remains tight and the economy continues to add jobs at a rapid pace“said Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist for HFE. This report “shows both strength and stability. Strength in the number of jobs added and stability in the diversity of where those jobs were addedcommented Robert Frick, economist for Navy Federal Credit Union.
Job creations in the private sector alone, published on Wednesday, had set the tone, defying forecasts, with 296,000 jobs created once morest 142,000 the previous month, according to the monthly ADP / Stanford Lab survey. The American central bank (Fed) is in the front line to fight once morest high inflation. It is she who must put an end to the overheating of the economy fueled by years of very low interest rates, which has led to this unprecedented rise in prices for 40 years.
For this, it has been raising its rates for a year. This leads the banks to, in turn, raise the cost of the loans they offer to households and businesses, to weigh on consumption and investment, and stop the escalation in prices. The Fed increased them once more on Wednesday, following its monetary policy meeting, for the 10th time in a row.
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More jobs than workers
«We see some evidence of easing labor market conditions“, had then indicated its president, Jerome Powell, during a press conference, “but, overall, you have an unemployment rate at the lowest in 50 years». «Labor demand still far outstrips the supply of available workers“, he had also commented.
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At the end of March, there were still nearly 9.6 million job vacancies, according to the Labor Department’s JOLTS survey released Tuesday. It is, of course, in regular decline, but it remains at a very high level. However, while economic activity is slowing down under the pressure of rate hikes, but also of the recent crisis in the banking sector which is also restricting access to credit for households and businesses, a recession cannot be ruled out, and the unemployment is also expected to rise.
Nancy Vanden Houten, economist for Oxford Economics, thus anticipates a slowdown in employment growth linked to “a mild recession” coming, “cumulative rate hikes and tighter lending standards weighing on the economy and labor market in the second half“. The boss of the Fed, however, still believes that it is possible to escape it. And, if there is a recession, it might be mild, with rising unemployment.weaker than has been typical in modern-era recessions».
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