US non-farm payrolls fell by 539,000 job in April, according to figures from the US Labor Department. The number was smaller than the 595,000 job losses expected by the market in the month. The unemployment rate meanwhile rose to 8.9 per cent vs 8.5 per cent in March.
The top paragraphs from the release:
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost. In April, job los- ses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector indus- tries. Overall, private-sector employment fell by 611,000.
Unemployment (Household Survey Data)
The number of unemployed persons increased by 563,000 to 13.7 million in April, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 6.0 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 3.9 percentage points. (See table A-1.)
As Marc Ostwald at Monument Securities points out, however, this year’s Easter timing effects do increase the chances of a ‘rogue’ reading. As he states in a Friday note the reading could be:
…one which is both wide of the consensus forecast as well as offering a very deceptive guide to actual underlying labour market trends, which are de facto bad and likely to remain so for a protracted period.