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The U.S. economy added 115,000 jobs in April, more than double what analysts had expected, according to the report released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Economists projected the creation of only 55,000 jobs, according to a Dow Jones survey (which tracks the stock performance of the 30 largest industrial companies in the U.S.), making the outcome a pleasant surprise.
Despite the growth, the figure represents a decline compared to the 185,000 jobs created in March.
On the other hand, the unemployment rate remained stable at 4.3%.
The health sector led job growth in April with 37,000 new positions, in line with its monthly average of 32,000 over the past 12 months. Transportation and storage added 30,000 jobs, while retail contributed 22,000.
But the outlook was not uniform. The information technology sector lost 13,000 jobs, and federal employment fell by 9,000.
The BLS also warned that "the number of people employed part-time for economic reasons rose by 445,000 to reach 4.9 million in April."
The agency clarifies that these are individuals who would have preferred a full-time job but were unable to find one.
"They worked part-time because their hours had been reduced or because they could not find full-time jobs," she specified.
The average hourly wage for all employees in private non-agricultural payrolls increased by 6 cents (0.2%), and the wage for production and non-supervisory workers in the private sector rose by 11 cents (0.3%).
The report also included significant revisions from previous months. The U.S. created 178,000 jobs in March, a figure revised upwards by 7,000 positions.
The inflation reached 3.3% year-on-year in March, the highest level in two years, primarily driven by energy, which increased by 12.5% year-on-year.
The data arrives in a context of intense economic pressure stemming from the war between the United States and Iran, which has driven energy prices up across the country.
The average price of gasoline nationwide is around $4.55 per gallon, a 50% increase since the conflict began in February. In Florida, it rose 40 cents in just one week at the beginning of May, reaching $4.34, the highest level since 2022.
The war with Iran has cost the Pentagon about 25 billion dollars since it began, according to Acting Undersecretary Jules Hurst before Congress. The additional spending by American households on gasoline between late February and March reached 8.4 billion dollars, approximately 740 dollars per household.
Despite the positive employment data, six out of ten Americans believe that the war with Iran was a mistake, according to May surveys.
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