The U.S. economy's jobs rebound produced a dud in April, adding just 266,000 jobs despite vaccine progress, government stimulus checks and easing Covid restrictions. The unemployment rate edged up to 6.1%. As economists searched for explanations, investors bid stocks higher. The Nasdaq led the way, buoyed by lower Treasury yields, while the Dow Jones and S&P 500 touched new records after the jobs report.
XThe weak jobs report means that the Federal Reserve will kick the can on any discussion of tapering asset purchases for at least a few more months. Projections that the Fed will wait until 2024 to raise interest rates no longer seem untenable.
The low interest-rate environment for longer is a boon for growth stock valuations. Wall Street discounts future growth based on the level of the 10-year Treasury yield, which fell near a two-month low on Friday.
Nonfarm payroll employment remains down 8.2 million from February 2020's peak of 152.5 million.
Private-sector payrolls rose 218,000, while government jobs rose 48,000. Wall Street expected the April jobs report to show a gain of 938,000 jobs overall, including 853,000 private-sector jobs. Economists expected the unemployment rate to fall to 5.8%.
Job gains for February and March were revised down by a combined 78,000. March's initially reported 916,000 gain was revised to 770,000.
There was every reason to expect April's jobs report would be stronger than March's. The prior report reflected mid-March employer and household surveys that came just as President Biden signed the $1.9-trillion stimulus and before some $400 billion in stimulus checks went out the door.
Why Jobs Report Was So Soft
So what happened? Employers have said they're having trouble finding workers, despite high unemployment.
A number of commentators have pointed to ongoing emergency jobless benefits as the reason many workers are staying on the sidelines. That surely played some role in the soft numbers, but that was hardly the hole story.
To at least some extent, the global chip shortage and other supply-chain snags were a drag on Friday's jobs report. Motor vehicle and auto parts manufacturers shed 27,000 jobs last month.
A more long-lasting issue may be that employers learned how to get by with fewer workers during the pandemic. Some economists are worried that a Covid-inspired productivity boom could have a long-term negative effect on modest-skill workers.
The easing of the Covid threat wasn't all positive when it came to the job market. There were big gains in leisure and hospitality. Food and drinking places added back 187,000 jobs. Hotels and motels hired back 54,400 workers.
On the downside, food and beverage stores cut 49,400 jobs, as customers returned to restaurants and bars.
Meanwhile, more Americans may be doing their own shopping, rather than relying on deliveries. The numbers of couriers and messengers fell by 77,400.
Plus, the drop in Covid cases means fewer temporary health care workers are needed. That may partly explain the loss of 111,400 temporary help jobs.
S&P 500, Treasury Yields React To Jobs Report
After the jobs report, Dow Jones gave back premarket gains before turning higher. The Dow rose 0.4%, the S&P 500 0.7% and the Nasdaq 1.1%.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 1.54% on Friday morning, down three basis points and close to a two-month low. The 10-year Treasury yield hit a Covid-era high of 1.77% on March 30.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said he would want to see "a string" of strong jobs reports like March's before beginning to contemplate the timing of a wind-down of Fed asset purchases. That was before March job growth was revised lower. Any discussion of tapering now seems unlikely before late summer.
The Dow closed at a record 34,548 on Thursday, up 13% year to date. So far the Dow and broader stock market have powered through concerns about tax hikes and higher interest rates.
The S&P 500 closed at 4,202, just below a record high and up 12% for the year. As economic growth has accelerated, driving a broad rebound, the Nasdaq has underperformed the S&P 500 since mid-February and is up 6% for the year.
Be sure to read IBD's The Big Picture column after each trading day to get the latest on the stock market trend and whether investors have a green light for buying quality stocks at a proper entry point.
Unemployment Rate
The household survey, which is used to derive the unemployment rate, showed the ranks of the employed rising 328,000, while the unemployed rose by 102,000. The ranks of Americans not in the labor force fell by 330,000.
The higher unemployment rate in April interrupted the downward trend after the jobless rate hit 14.7% in April 2020. Yet that understates the progress. The Labor Department estimated that unemployment would climbed as high as 19.7%, if workers hadn't been misclassified as being employed but not at work.
According to the monthly survey of households, 9.8 million Americans are unemployed, down from 23.1 million in April 2020, but up from 5.8 million in February 2020.
Please follow Jed Graham on Twitter at @IBD_JGraham for coverage of economic policy and financial markets.
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