The latest jobs report shows the economy picked up 160,000 new jobs, while unemployment remained unchanged at roughly 5 percent. We also discovered employers added 19,000 fewer jobs in February and March than previously reported.
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Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate has risen for six straight months and now sits as the third lowest in Canada. But if next month’s report affirms hiring downshifted, some policy makers – already concerned about sluggish economic activity and weak inflation-with may prefer to wait until the year’s second half.
“Employment was never going to continue rising at more than 200,000 a month indefinitely”, said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, a consulting firm.
“The labor market is still reasonably healthy”, Joshua Shapiro, chief USA economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc.in NY, said before the report. Manufacturing is expected to have shed another 5,000 jobs last month after losing 29,000 in March, the biggest loss for the sector since December 2009. “If the April report turns into a true declining trend in job creation, we likely won’t see that impact in home sales until the summer”.
Diane Swonk, an independent economist in Chicago, pointed to the strong gain of 67,000 jobs in the business and professional services category as additional evidence that the broader slowdown in hiring last month was not an ominous sign of trouble ahead.
Sectors of the economy that affect the absorption of office space are still adding jobs at a reasonable rate.
Companies scaled back hiring in April, adding just 160,000 new jobs, in a sign the us economy still hasn’t recovered from an early-year chill.
The employment-to-population ratio fell to 59.7 percent in April from a seven-year high of 59.9 percent in March.
The number of full-time jobs edged down by 2,400 in April and part-time jobs rose by only 400.
As numbers of economic growth rate slowed to a near stop in April, it officially marked the slowest job growth in two years. There were also job losses in support services and agriculture, while there were gains in wholesale and retail trade.
The proportion of Americans in the labor force dropped last month to 62.8 percent from 63 percent in March, partially reversing a rebound that began last fall after the participation rate hit lows last seen in the 1970s. Average hourly earnings climbed 0.3 per cent from the prior month after a 0.2 per cent advance.
“The labor market is healing”, she said last month. With a Fed rate hike off the table (even the possibility of negative interest rates in the near future), stashing wealth in hard assets seems smarter than ever. China’s growth slowed previous year, but has shown signs of leveling off in 2016.
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The average workweek for private-sector workers was rose by 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours in April. Year-over-year earnings have grown by 2.5 percent.
