The U.S. economy added 177,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, the Labor Department announced Friday, defying worries that the labor market was beginning to crack under the strain of President Donald Trump’s trade and spending policies.
Hiring was off slightly from the 185,000 recorded in March, which was downwardly revised from an initial 228,000, but well above estimates of 135,000, suggesting that the labor market remains solid despite the threat that massive new tariffs and extensive layoffs in the federal government could slow the economy.
The number of federal jobs shrank, but only by 9,000, far short of what some experts expected to see amid the DOGE-driven reductions in government employment. (The report noted that employees on paid leave or receiving severance payments are counted as employed, so many of the DOGE layoffs may not have made it into the data yet.)
Hiring by state and local governments picked up, rising by a combined 19,000, with nearly half of that in education. Manufacturing jobs were down, falling by 1,000, but employment in healthcare continued to increase at a solid pace, up 51,000. Transportation and warehousing hiring increased by 29,000, perhaps a sign that companies are building inventories ahead of any potential supply issues.
According to the separate household survey, the labor force participation rate moved slightly higher to 62.6%, showing little change over the last year.
What people are saying: The Trump administration celebrated the report, claiming victory for Trump’s policies. “With President Trump at the helm, I'm telling you, he mentioned to the American people over and over again that the golden age was coming,” Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer told Fox Business. “I will tell you, the golden age is here.”
Trump highlighted the report, as well, saying on his social media platform that the economy is in a transition stage and “just getting started!!!” Citing low inflation, he repeated his call for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. (He also claimed that gas prices “just broke $1.98 a Gallon, lowest in years,” though as CNN’s Daniel Dale noted, the average price for a gallon of gas nationally is about $3.19 and the lowest average price in any state is $2.66 per gallon in Mississippi.)
Economist Justin Wolfers of the University of Michigan warned that the celebration over the latest jobs data may be premature, since the April report may not include some of the layoffs that could have occurred after Trump announced his new tariff plan on what he called “Liberation Day,” April 2. “These are no post-tariff numbers,” Wolfers said.
Even so, the strength of the April report was encouraging for many economists. “We can push recession concerns to another month,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, per CNBC. “Job numbers remain very strong, suggesting there was an impressive degree of resilience in the economy in play before the tariff shock.”
Shah added that she expects the economy to weaken as tariffs kick in, but the current momentum means “the U.S. has a decent chance of averting recession if it can step back from the tariff brink in time.”
While the solid April numbers came as a relief, some analysts emphasized that other worrying signs for the economy are starting to crop up. “Were it not for the concerns about the economic fallout from higher tariffs, the steady labor market activity apparent in the April employment report would have been unremarkable,” JPMorgan’s Michael Feroli said in a research note. “Instead, the solid momentum in hiring stood out against the broad deterioration in business surveys last month.”