The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has released a solid April jobs report that is fueling US stocks higher, and the Nasdaq Composite is up overall. Payrolls added 115,000 jobs in April, trumping the 65,000 jobs analysts expected, as the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%. Job gains, which have been concentrated mostly in the healthcare sector, began to broaden to other sectors, with payroll gains in transportation and warehousing and retail. Manufacturing jobs slid, and federal government employment also continued to decline.
Job growth has been volatile this year. March data was revised higher by 7,000 to 185,000, an about-face from the newly revised 156,000 jobs lost in February and closer to the blockbuster 160,000 jobs created in January. Additionally, average hourly earnings came in lower than expected on April’s jobs report, increasing 0.2% for the month and 3.6% on an annual basis, compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.8%. The Nasdaq climbed as much as 1.4% on Friday, while the S&P 500 rose 0.79%.
Despite the gains on Friday, the jobs report was largely overshadowed by geopolitical events. Crude prices moved higher in after-hours trading on Thursday after military clashes erupted near the Strait of Hormuz. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.4% after both the US and Iran accused one another of initiating attacks in the region.
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Investment experts welcomed the solid report, but noted concerns with the labor force’s continued sluggish numbers. The report shows the labor market has been “pretty much stable for a year, year and a half,” Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve of Chicago, said in a CNBC interview. “I characterize that we’ve been stable without being good. … The unemployment rate has been stable, the hiring rate has been stable, the layoff rate has been stable, and the vacancy rate has been stable. So, I still think there’s not a lot of evidence that the job market is falling apart.”
Further, the report is “evidence of the underlying resilience of this economy and of this labor market, despite all of the slings and arrows of outrageous concerns about the Middle East and unemployment and inflation and the Fed,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.