(Washington) The job market in the United States rebounded unexpectedly in April, with job creations rising and the unemployment rate falling, far from the expected slowdown in the fight against high inflation.
In April, 253,000 jobs were thus created, the Department of Labor announced on Friday, compared to 165,000 in March – a figure revised down sharply.
As for the unemployment rate, it fell further, and fell to 3.4% (-0.1 point). Analysts expected 180,000 job creations and an unemployment rate of 3.6%, according to several consensuses.
A decline in job creation and a rise in the unemployment rate are however expected to manage to curb inflation. This, still very strong, had been fueled by the significant growth in wages linked to the lack of manpower.
Job creations in the private sector alone, published on Wednesday, had set the tone, defying the forecasts, with 296,000 jobs created against 142,000 the previous month, according to the monthly ADP / Stanford Lab survey.
Wages, however, tended to show that the euphoria of the immediate post-COVID-19 period seems well and truly over: +6.7% over one year for people who remained in the same job, against 6.9% in March, and +13.2% for those who changed jobs, compared to 14.2%.
Wages have indeed soared in the United States since 2020, due to a significant lack of labor. This contributed to the spike in inflation.
More jobs than workers
The American central bank (Fed) is in the front line to fight against high inflation. It is she who must put an end to the overheating of the economy, which has led to this unprecedented rise in prices for 40 years.
For this, it has been raising its rates for a year. This leads the banks to, in turn, raise the interest rates on the loans they offer to households and companies, to weigh on consumption and investment, and stop the escalation of prices.
It increased them further on Wednesday, at the end of its monetary policy meeting, for the 10e times in a row.
“We see some evidence of easing labor market conditions,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told a news conference at the time, “but overall you have an unemployment rate at most low in 50 years”.
“The demand for labor still greatly exceeds the supply of available workers,” he also commented.
At the end of March, there were still nearly 9.6 million job vacancies, according to the Labor Department’s JOLTS survey released Tuesday. It is, of course, in regular decline, but it remains at a very high level.
However, as economic activity slows under the pressure of rate hikes, a recession cannot be ruled out, which would lead to higher unemployment.
The boss of the Fed, however, believes that it is possible to escape. And, if there is a recession, it could be mild, with unemployment rising “lower than what has been usual in modern-era recessions”.