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Chapter 1: What were the job numbers for April and how did they compare to expectations?
April's job numbers blow past expectations, but we may not be out of the low-hire, low-fire labor market quite yet. Plus, what a decision by the Virginia Supreme Court means for Democrats' hopes of retaking the House in the midterms.
While this is certainly something that makes Democrats winning back control of the House much more difficult, I don't think this decision favors Republicans in the big picture.
Why is that? We'll get into it. And in a big win for Intel, it will supply some chips for Apple devices, a deal that was pushed by the Trump administration. It's Friday, May 8th. I'm Alex Zosula for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Let's start the show with some good news. U.S.
Chapter 2: What does the Virginia Supreme Court's decision mean for Democrats in the midterms?
employers added 115,000 jobs in April, blowing past analyst expectations for the second month in a row. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate stayed at 4.3%. For more on what's behind the numbers, I'm joined now by WSJ economics reporter, Chow Dang. Chow, a few months ago, economists were really worried about a hiring slowdown hurting the economy.
Now this is the second really good month in a row of jobs numbers. Can we safely say that the labor market has strengthened?
I think that the strong number from today is a glimmer of hope that it will become easier for those without a job to find a job. That said, I think economists will probably want to see job gains for a few more months before they feel like conditions have really turned a page. It's two months of strong data that we've seen.
So it's a little bit early to say that companies are shrugging off the Iran war or even completely shrugging off tariffs. But businesses are seeing conditions stabilizing and they have weathered tariffs. So some are hiring.
Were there any surprises among the sectors where we saw this growth? I mean, a lot of the growth over the past few months has come from industries like health care. Did we see that again this month?
Yeah, very much so. Healthcare and social assistance jobs continue to power the overall job gains. We saw healthcare add 54,000 jobs in April. One surprise was the retail sector. We saw jobs there in super centers and warehouse clubs. Broadly speaking, jobs are coming through in more sectors than just healthcare.
Of course, we would be remiss to not talk about the Fed. It's been caught between inflation concerns and worries about a deteriorating job market. Those two mandates always in tension. What does it mean for the Fed if the jobs market seems like it's getting stronger?
Right. For a long time, the Federal Reserve has wondered whether it needs to keep cutting interest rates to support what appears to be a shaky labor market. Now that we've had this strong report, I think it puts more focus on the inflation data, which we'll see next week from the Labor Department for the month of April.
We know inflation is drifting up instead of down because of tariffs and also because of the effects of the Iran war. And so I think we're going to see the Fed focusing increasingly on that.
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