Employers created 253,000 jobs in April, keeping the U.S. economy afloat amid a banking crisis, rising interest rates, the prospect of devastating U.S. government default and a spike in layoffs.
The unemployment rate dropped to 3.4 percent last month, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday, matching a low from May 1969.
“This jobs report does not look recessionary at all,” said Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank. “Other economic indicators give more reasons for concern, but the jobs report says the labor market is still extremely tight.”
The remarkable strength of the pandemic recovery labor market, despite some softening, is buoying the U.S. economy through enormous uncertainty. The April jobs report, which beat economists’ forecasts, showed the 28th straight month of solid job growth. Adults in their prime working age of between 25 and 54 are back in the workforce at rates not seen since before the labor market wreckage of the Great Recession. Jobless benefit claims have been slowly inching up but still show no signs of an economic downturn.
