To take you back in time, last month’s report showed a gain of 235,000 (later revised to 219,000) jobs and unemployment rate of 4.7%.
Drum roll please! The jobs report for March was only 98,000 (weak but cyclical see the chart below) and the jobless rate dropped to 4.5% – this is a sigh of relief if you are trying to lock-in a fixed rate, but it’s not a good sign for the US economy.
Also, this is a point of contention in many circles.
If we didn’t add many new jobs to the economy how did the unemployed or jobless number go down to 4.5% ? Well, some people who were looking are no longer looking for work, took early retirement or are no longer part of the number that is, they outlasted the time frame that is considered “actively looking for work”.
This chart from BLS (one of my favorite sites Bureau of Labor Statistics) shows a clear picture of the trends. So no need to panic.
So the week ended much less dramatically than some thought and rates remain the same.