U.S. Employers Added 115,000 Jobs in April, Beating Forecasts

U.S. employers added 115,000 jobs in April, well above forecasts, and the unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Economists polled by LSEG had expected a gain of about 62,000, Fox Business reported. The bureau said payroll employment “edged up” in April after showing little net change over the prior 12 months.

Private employers added 123,000 jobs, ahead of the 75,000 forecast, Fox Business said, while government payrolls fell by 8,000, with the federal workforce down 9,000. The bureau said federal employment is down 348,000 since October 2024. Revisions were small: February was revised to a loss of 156,000 jobs from a loss of 133,000, and March was revised up to a gain of 185,000 from 178,000, leaving the two months combined 16,000 lower than first reported.

Health care led the gains with 37,000 jobs. Transportation and warehousing added 30,000, led by couriers and messengers, retail added 22,000, and social assistance added 17,000, according to the bureau. Information lost 13,000 jobs. Fox Business reported that manufacturing shed 2,000 jobs, against an expectation of a gain of 5,000.

Pay continued to rise at a moderate pace. Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose 6 cents, or 0.2 percent, to $37.41, and were up 3.6 percent from a year earlier, the bureau reported. The average workweek edged up to 34.3 hours.

The household survey, which measures the unemployment rate, was less upbeat than the payroll count. The bureau said the number of employed people fell by about 226,000 from March to roughly 162.6 million, and labor force participation was 61.8 percent, down from 62.6 percent a year earlier, the bureau’s tables show. The number of people working part time because they could not find full-time work rose by 445,000 to 4.9 million, and 1.8 million people, or 25.3 percent of the unemployed, had been out of work for 27 weeks or more.

Analysts said the report leaves the Federal Reserve on hold. The central bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged on April 29. Ellen Zentner of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management told Fox Business the data leave the Fed “watching and waiting” with a focus on inflation, and she said rate cuts are not on the near-term horizon. Lindsay Rosner of Goldman Sachs Asset Management said she expects the central bank to concentrate on containing upside inflation risks now that the labor market appears to be back on track, and that the Fed’s policy committee could drop its bias toward easing in its June statement.

The monthly payroll figure is preliminary and is revised in later reports; the next one, covering May, is due June 5, according to the bureau. Fox Business noted that uncertainty tied to the conflict in the Middle East remains a factor for hiring.