by Marc Chandler
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The US created 211k net new jobs in April, a sharp bounce back from the downwardly revised 79k gain in March. It is the third month this year that the US created more than 200k new jobs.
United StatesNonfarm payrollsGovernment payrolls increased by 17k. As we noted with the Administration’s federal hiring freeze, the real growth in government employment is on the state and local level. In April the federal government lost 6k workers while state and local governments added 23k. |
U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, April 2017(see more posts on U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge |
Participation RateThis seems largely a function of the decline in the participation rate. It eased to 62.9% from 63.0% This matches the low for the year so far set in January. |
U.S. Participation Rate, April 2017(see more posts on U.S. Participation Rate, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge |
Unemployment RateThe unemployment rate slipped to a new cyclical low of 4.4% from 4.5%. |
U.S. Unemployment Rate, April 2017(see more posts on U.S. Unemployment Rate, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge |
Average Hourly EarningsHourly earnings rose 0.3%, but the downward revision in March to 0.1% form 0.2%, means that the year-over-year rate eased to 2.5% from the initially reported 2.7% (and now revised to 2.6%). The work week increased by 0.1% to 34.4 hours. Although it does not sound like much, given the 150 mln employees, the gain in the work week is more than 400k full time equivalents. This will likely impact output, income and consumption. One unmitigated good news was that the underemployment rate (U-6) fell to 8.6% from 8.9%. Last April it was at 9.7%. It is the lowest since late 2007.
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U.S. Average Hourly Earnings, April 2017(see more posts on U.S. Average Earnings, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge |
CanadaThe decline in the unemployment rate fell to 6.5%, but this was a function of a fall in the participation rate. |
Canada Employment Change, April 2017(see more posts on Canada Employment Change, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge |
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In contrast, Canada reported disappointing April job figures. It created only 3.2k jobs. There was a loss of 31.2k full time positions and a gains of 34.3k part time jobs.
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Canada Unemployment Rate, April 2017(see more posts on Canada Unemployment Rate, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge |
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Canada Participation RateThe Canadian participation rate fall to 65.6 (from 65.9%). The cyclical low was last summer at 65.5%.
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Canada Participation Rate, April 2017(see more posts on Canada Participation Rate, ) Source: Investing.com - Click to enlarge |
Tags: Bank of Canada,Canada Employment Change,Canada Participation Rate,Canada Unemployment Rate,jobs,newslettersent,participation rate,U.S. Average Earnings,U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls,U.S. Participation Rate,U.S. Unemployment Rate
