April jobs report: tons of new jobs and teeny-tiny pay raises
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These numbers explain why so many workers are going on strike.
Employers added a solid 263,000 new jobs to the US economy in April — once again surpassing economic forecasts, according to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
All the new hiring in April, plus an increase in people leaving the labor force, pushed the already super-low unemployment rate down even further, to 3.6 percent. That’s the lowest rate of unemployed Americans recorded since December 1969.
Yet the smaller pool of available workers didn’t translate to much higher pay: Workers only got an average hourly pay raise of 6 cents in April. A month earlier, wages rose a meager 4 cents.
The new jobs report shows that the US economy is continuing to expand, but without middle- and working-class families seeing much of the benefit. Job security is the one advantage employees can count on these days.
Low unemployment and high job creation means that nearly every American who wants to work and is able to has snagged a job by now. And those who lose their jobs, or decide to leave, probably won’t have a hard time finding another position.
Most of the new jobs created in April were positions in business services, construction, health care, and social assistance.
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