Courtesy of Mish.
Initial Reaction
Today we see a snap back from last month's report on both establishment jobs and household survey employment. Last month the household survey last month came in at an anemic 34,000. This month it is 192,000.
Part-time employment went up by 198,000 meaning the entire increase in household survey employment was part-time.
Finally, March nonfarm payrolls were revised lower from 126,000 to 85,000.
This snap back is nowhere near as big as it appears at first glance. It will take at least another month to see if weakness in March was the start of something or an outlier.
Interesting Details
The Bloomberg Consensus jobs estimate was for 220,000 jobs, nearly right on target. The estimate range was a wide 180,000 to 335,000. There is lots of optimism from some economists.
Bloomberg: The April employment report is mixed and probably won't be pulling forward expectations for a Fed rate hike. Nonfarm payroll growth came in about as expected, at a soft 223,000. But there is a substantial downward revision to what was already an extremely weak March, from 126,000 to 85,000. The good news is another downtick in the unemployment rate, to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent and reflecting a favorable mix led by a rise in those finding jobs.
Details of the payroll data show a very large 45,000 rise in what has been a depressed construction sector. This is one of the largest monthly gains of the recovery and may point to springtime acceleration for construction and new housing. Professional business services added a strong 62,000 jobs with temporary services up a solid 16,000 for its best gain of the year.
You cannot play (at least you should not play the gain in construction both ways). If the weakness was weather-related then a snapback in construction should have been expected. Some but not all of the recent weakness was weather related. Construction probably was more affected than services.
Let's take a look at all the key numbers.
BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance
- Nonfarm Payroll: +233,000 – Establishment Survey
- Employment: +192,000 – Household Survey
- Unemployment: -26,000 – Household Survey
- Involuntary Part-Time Work: -125,000 – Household Survey
- Voluntary Part-Time Work: +323,000 – Household Survey
- Baseline Unemployment Rate: -0.1 at 5.4% – Household Survey
- U-6 unemployment: -0.1 to 10.8% – Household Survey
- Civilian Non-institutional Population: +186,000
- Civilian Labor Force: +166,000 – Household Survey
- Not in Labor Force: +19,000 – Household Survey
- Participation Rate: +0.1 at 62.8 – Household Survey
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