US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released its April 2021 Employment Situation Report showing:
- 226,000 jobs were added in April, vs. the 1M that economists had predicted on the theory that vaccine rollout and business reopenings would stimulate job growth.
- Biggest gains were in:
- Leisure and hospitality: +331,000 jobs, more than half at restaurants and bars
- Services
- Local government education
- The average workweek increased by 0.1 hour to 35 hours.
- Average hourly earnings increased by $0.21 to $30.17.
- But the unemployment rate rose from 6.0% to 6.1%, with 9.8M previously employed persons remaining out of work.
April job growth was the slowest since January.
Also, March job gains were revised down from 916,000 previously reported to 770,000.
Unfortunately, job gains haven't kept up with the growth in consumer spending enabled by government stimulus payments.
The US now has 8.2M fewer jobs than in February 2020:
Jobs continued to be lost in manufacturing and retail.
Will stimulus payments and unemployment compensation be sufficient for those 8.2M people still out of work to be willing and able to travel this summer?
Stay tuned for updates.
