Jobs Outperform, Setting Stage For More Monetary Tightening

U.S. employment remains more resilient than expected given monetary tightening, adding 253,000 jobs in April, and pushing the unemployment down to 3.4 percent in April compared to 3.5 percent in March. Jobs growth has been positive for the last 26 months, with the U.S. economy now having replaced most of the jobs lost at the beginning of the pandemic.

Wednesday, May 10th, 2023 — U.S. employment remains more resilient than expected given monetary tightening, adding 253,000 jobs in April, and pushing the unemployment down to 3.4 percent in April compared to 3.5 percent in March.

Jobs growth has been positive for the last 26 months, with the U.S. economy now having replaced most of the jobs lost at the beginning of the pandemic.

Employment for the Insurance Carriers and Related Activities subsector specifically continues to outperform wider U.S. employment. The unemployment rate for the insurance industry was 1.6 percent in April, up from 1.5 percent in March.

Employment’s resilience and the historically low current unemployment rate are likely to add to pressure from inflation hawks on the Fed to not only continue increasing rates but to make each rate hike bigger.