NFP recap: Whoa, big miss! What does this mean for the Fed?
Joe Perry
May 7, 2021 2:58 PM
With the combination of the headline print and the revision, only 120,000 jobs were added to the economy in April
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US Non-Farm Payrolls were released earlier, and the employment print puts a big question mark over traders’ heads when deciding what the Fed will do next. The headline NFP print showed that the US economy added 266,000 jobs. That would be a good number if it was during “normal” times. However, with the pandemic recovery underway, the market was expecting +978,000 jobs. To make matters worse, the March print was revised down to +770,000 from +916,000. If you combine the headline print with the revision, only 120,000 jobs were added to the economy in April vs expectations of nearly +1,000,000! The unemployment rate rose to 6.1% vs an expectation of 5.8% and 6.0% in March. Average hourly earnings were +0.7% vs 0.0% expected and -0.1% in March.