Who knows what to expect from the Bureau of Labor Statistics these days. One think that appears consistent even in the new administration is downward revisions to prior month’s employment reports. On the surface, today’s report was positive, with 177,000 jobs added, far above expectations. February and March were revised downward by a total of 58,000. The unemployment rate stayed steady. The labor force participation rate was up slightly. Wage growth was also stable, a good sign for inflation. Health care, transportation and warehousing and financial activities had good job increases, while federal government employment declined slightly. Federal government employment has now declined for four months, but this unfortunately will have only a slight budget impact. Full time employment rose far more rapidly than did part-time jobs. And the number of people with multiple part-time jobs declined. I have little trust in the numbers on foreign versus US-born workers, but it is believable that a large number of illegal immigrants left the workforce last month. Not sure where the surge in US-born employees came from. Also on the sketchy side, the “birth/death” model, which attempts to track new businesses and those going away, added over 390,000 jobs. The two surveys which make up the report are showing less divergence, but still a fair amount. Hard to know what to believe. (BLS Report)
