U.S. employers added 115,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on May 8. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3%, where it has sat for most of the past year.
The headline payroll figure beat the consensus forecast of 65,000 jobs, though it came in below the revised 185,000 print for March. Hiring was concentrated in health care, transportation and warehousing, and retail trade. Federal government employment continued to contract, declining by 9,000 over the month.
Health care led sector gains with 37,000 new positions. Transportation and warehousing added 30,000, retail rose by 22,000, and social assistance increased by 17,000. Manufacturing was essentially flat, and information-sector employment continued to weaken in line with the multi-quarter trend of tech-sector contraction.
The BLS revised February's payroll change downward by 23,000, deepening the loss to 156,000. March was revised upward by 7,000 to a gain of 185,000. The combined revision for the two months was 16,000 jobs lower than previously reported. Monthly revisions are routine and reflect additional reports received from businesses and government agencies after the initial estimate.
The number of unemployed Americans stood at 7.2 million. The household survey, which the BLS uses to calculate the unemployment rate, showed a decline of 226,000 workers in the labor force, with the participation rate dropping to 61.8% — the lowest reading since October 2021.
People employed part-time for economic reasons rose by 445,000 to 4.9 million, indicating an increase in workers who would prefer full-time positions but could not find them. The broader U-6 measure, which includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons, rose 0.2 percentage points to 8.2%. The number of long-term unemployed (jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 1.8 million, accounting for about 25% of all unemployed people.
Average hourly earnings for all private-sector employees increased 6 cents over the month to $35.79. On an annual basis, average hourly earnings rose 3.6%, the smallest year-over-year gain in more than a year. Production and nonsupervisory workers saw earnings rise 0.2% over the month and 4.0% over the year.
The Employment Situation report for May is scheduled for release on Friday, June 5, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for April is the next major labor-market release in the interim. Markets will also be watching for prior-month revisions when the May report lands, since recent reports have shown a pattern of meaningful downward revisions that have softened the apparent strength of earlier prints.
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