BREAKING: US Jobs Market Blows Past Expectations – Again

Has the job-creation market begun to recover from a year off? For the second straight month, the US economy beat economists’ expectations to deliver a solid month of growth in the labor market. 

The US added 115,000 jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning, more than twice the level predicted by analysts. It’s the third month of growth over 100,000 jobs in the last four, and all three showed more job growth than any month in Donald Trump’s term preceding them:

Total nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 115,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, transportation and warehousing, and retail trade. Federal government employment continued to decline.

The increases spread out across most industries, with health care continuing to lead the way:

In April, health care added 37,000 jobs, in line with the average monthly gain of 32,000 over the prior 12 months. Over the month, job gains occurred in nursing and residential care facilities (+15,000) and home health care services (+11,000). 

Transportation and warehousing employment increased by 30,000 in April, reflecting a gain in couriers and messengers (+38,000). However, employment in transportation and warehousing is down by 105,000 since reaching a peak in February 2025. 

Retail trade added 22,000 jobs in April. Employment increased in warehouse clubs, supercenters, and other general merchandise retailers (+18,000) and in building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers (+13,000). These gains were partially offset by job losses in department stores (-7,000) and in electronics and appliance retailers (-2,000). Retail trade employment had shown little net change over the prior 12 months.

Most of the gains took place in the service industries. Goods producers added 10,000 jobs overall, but manufacturing slowed to a +2,000 after adding 15,000 jobs in March. Government jobs continued to disappear slowly, too, with another 9,000 positions cut. In the past 18 months, the government sector has been reduced by over 11%, with 348,000 jobs eliminated. Interestingly for an era where billions of investor dollars are flowing into AI projects, the information sector continues to decline. In the last three-plus years, that sector has declined by 11% too.

Wages continue to grow as well, although recent inflation pressures may have caught up:

Inflation is wiping out wage gains.
This is the big Achilles Heel in the US economy.

April wage growth: 3.6%
April inflation expected to be ~4%

Wages are being eaten up by inflation due to the war in Iran. This is a big shift from the past several years when wages were growing… pic.twitter.com/deoTTejo2H

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) May 8, 2026

This is a big shift from the past several years when wages were growing well above inflation. 

Yes, workers have jobs, but this is a squeeze.

Long is not wrong about this. Democrats will use this to hammer their “affordability” issue in the near term. This may be why Trump is so anxious to cut a deal; he and the GOP need to get fuel prices to drop sharply and quickly to negate the political consequences of inflation. The good news is that this inflation is entirely driven by the short-term issues of the war, rather than large-scale supply-chain crises and foolish stimulus policies that exacerbate them. An end to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz would immediately correct this. 

Overall, though, this report shows solid economic growth and investment in the economy, even in the context of a war with Iran. It left analysts stunned, the Wall Street Journal notes:

The U.S. job market blew past expectations again in April, buoyed by gains across industries including retail, transportation and warehousing, and healthcare, a sign that the labor market remained resilient in the face of the Iran war.

The U.S. added 115,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said Friday, far exceeding expectations.

That compared with a net gain of 185,000 in March. It was better than the 55,000 jobs that analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see for April. … 

In the first four months of the year, monthly payrolls have averaged 76,000, up from an average of about 42,000 during the same period last year, offering a glimmer of hope that the labor market is improving.

It does look like the corner has been turned in a jobs market that hit the rocks last summer. That’s good news for Donald Trump, but it may be tough to get that message across until gas prices start moving back down, closer to levels seen in February. The longer Trump dithers with Iranian stall tactics, the longer that will take. 

CNBC’s Rick Santelli calls this a big win, but watch the whole video. He does a good job of walking through all of the data, and not all of it is great, but none of it is bad, either. “We’re doing better than many would have expected,” he concludes, and better than some had counted on, too.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and bold policies, America’s economy is back on track.

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