Washington - The US economy pumped out a solid 223,000 new jobs in April and unemployment ticked down to a seven-year low of 5.4 percent, the Labour Department said Friday.
But the US labour market nevertheless showed some signs of weakness, with wages barely growing and underemployment still elevated.
The Labour Department's monthly jobs market report was roughly in line with expectations, reversing a dismal performance in March, when the number of jobs generated was just 85,000.
April's recovery demonstrated that the economy still shows muscle following the first-quarter stall, analysts said.
But, pointing to weak details behind the headline numbers, they said another strong month or two is needed to prove the winter slowdown was "transitory," echoing the view of the Federal Reserve late last month.
The jobs report was "much better than in March, but still not by enough to fully offset March's weakness," said Jim O'Sullivan of High Frequency Economics.
Details in the data showed only slight signs of tightening in the labor market, which is key to both confidence in the economy's strength and the Fed's plan to begin hiking interest rates this year.
The number of unemployed Americans was virtually unchanged from March at 8.5 million, as was the labour force participation rate, at 62.8 percent, compared with above 66 percent before the 2008-2009 recessions.
Also barely changed was the number of people forced to accept part-time jobs, 6.6 million.
Meanwhile, average wages were up a mere 0.1 percent in the month, and just 2.2 percent from a year ago.
"More people are working, but they're not getting fatter pay checks," said Sal Guatieri of BMO Capital Markets.
AFP
