The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the latest month’s jobs data. It shows that employers added 428,000 positions in April.
We’ve all heard our fair share of “nobody wants to work” over the last year, but these figures show that — although that might be true, maybe some people really don’t want to work — they’re doing so anyway. The U.S. economy is almost back to pre-pandemic employment figures — with over 151.3 million “nonfarm employees.”
That might not sound like an impressive figure, it really is. The unemployment rate sat at 3.6%, just a pinch above its all-time low. In fact, we’re just 0.8% below pre-pandemic employment.
We’d like to call attention to the fact that more than 43% of Americans are under the age of 18 (some of these people work, but more-so are prioritizing education as their main job these days) or on Social Security, which implies that they’re retired (and I hope these people are not working, because they deserve a retirement).
When you consider those two factors, that makes for a very productive-looking economy.
Consider this exciting data amid the other BLS report that came out this week, though: there are more than 11.5 million open jobs right now. According to them, this is “the highest level in the history of the series.” And even with those millions of openings, there were 6.7 million hires made in March 2022. It’s exciting data that investors might wanna take a closer look at, especially given concerns about a forthcoming recession.
Employees made 0.3% more in April 2022, according to the BLS’s average hourly earnings figure, which stood +5.5% YoY. That’s a little bit lower than inflation, which will get an update for the month of April next week, but given the high volume of quits and open jobs, there might be room for wages to go higher.
Market indexes were little-affected by this news today. They all traded down today.