Labor has released new employment numbers for April, with US employment down for the fourth straight month, but at a much slower clip than anticipated.  Nonfarm payrolls dropped approximately 20,000 in April after declines of 83,000 in February and 81,000 in March.  By supersector manufacturing (46,000 jobs eliminated) and construction (61,000 jobs down) continued to be the areas hardest hit, retail trade lost 26,800 jobs. 

Supersector gainers were service sector (+90,000 jobs), health and education (+52,000 jobs), as well as leisure and hospitality (+18,000 jobs), and government (+9,000 jobs)

Labor also reported than average hourly earnings increased a paltry $0.01 or 0.1% to $17.88, up only 3.4% year over year.  

Perhaps the best part of the package is that the national unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 5% from 5.1% last month;  this fact in the eyes of many suggests that the first hints of economic recovery may be beginning to blossom.  Time will tell, but it’s nice to have the experts miss the mark (most were predicting an increased to 5.2%) and the data be better than expected.

As always there are markets out there experiencing very robust job growth despite the stress and strains on the economy.  We’ll continue to track those markets and post them each month in both newsletters.  The monthly free state by state employment and unemployment reports can be found on the free resources page of the website. 

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