The US Bureau of labour statistics released its monthly Non-Farm Payrolls Report today, and the data shows that the overall unemployment rate fell to 3.6 %, which is a level last seen in 1969.
The unemployment rate managed to fell with 0.2% in April compared to the NFP data for March, as the US economy adds a total of 263 000 new jobs, thus beating the initial estimations for just 181 000 new positions.
This performance is undoubtedly outstanding; however, the generally upbeat feeling was somewhat hampered by a backslide in the average hourly earnings of US workers as the data remained unchanged from the same 0.2% for the month of March, while the initial forecasts were for an increase with 0.3%. For that reason, the FED would still have to work on ways to encourage consumer spending, so that a surge in the prices can drive the inflation rate closer to the target level of 2% before another hike of the interest rate can be considered.
Despite the misfire in the hourly earnings data, the market reacted vigorously to the robust labour data, and the Dow Jones Industrial opened with a +0.51% gap at 26379.1 from the previous day’s 26307.8 closing price.