Us non-farm payrolls data for April surprised the market, with data released on Friday showing that only 266000 jobs were created that month, a far cry from expectations of 998000; the unemployment rate also rose.

This suggests that the recovery in the US job market is far from as strong as thought. Analysts believe that, on the one hand, the idea of the Fed's ultra-loose monetary policy has been verified; on the other hand, the prediction that Yellen may return to full employment next year has been challenged.

Why is the employment data so low in April? The following is an analysis of possible reasons:

Data instability

According to an analysis by the Financial Times, the job market is in a period of sharp fluctuations, which may lead to unstable, non-linear data and large prediction errors.

Forexlive analysts point out thatA quarterly adjustment model distorted by wild fluctuations in the job market in the same period last year, or4One of the main reasons for the much lower-than-expected growth in monthly employment.If you look at the non-quarterly raw data, the actual employment increased by 1.089 million in April, and the unemployment rate fell to 5.7%, which may be a more real state of the job market.

As a result, many economists believe that the April data show only a temporary slowdown in the recovery, not a long-term stagnation.

Labor shortage is getting worse.

Increasing labour shortages may be a major hindrance to employment.Olivia Rockeman, an analyst at Bloomberg, said that many employers have reported recent difficulties in recruiting workers, and the unemployed are becoming more hesitant and picky in the job market, so companies are understaffed with high unemployment, highlighting the structural contradictions in the employment sector.

After more than a year of the epidemic, some workers may not be able to return to work in time due to moving, health and other reasons. At the same time, the running time of some public transport systems is limited, which limits the mobility of some workers.

It is worth mentioning that the rising demand for labor has led to a rise in wages. In April, the average hourly wage in the United States rose by 0.3% more than expected, and the wages of relatively low-wage workers increased.

Production and services in some industries are still stagnant.

With the continuous disruption of the supply chain, part of the business is still stagnant. Manufacturing employment fell slightly in April, mainly in the production of automobiles and parts. Under the impact of global chip shortages, production is low as most carmakers are forced to shut down production.

At the same time, the shift in consumer behavior can also explain some of the unemployment.As the epidemic has improved, many shopping activities have shifted back from online to offline, reducing employment in the transport and warehousing sectors by more than 77000.

In addition, as more Americans eat out rather than cook, employment in food and beverage stores has fallen by nearly 50000.

Vaccination time difference

Although the Biden government achieved its target of 200m doses of COVID-19 vaccine in April, the non-farm report was compiled in the week of April 12, meaning that many unvaccinated workers were not ready to return to work and companies were not hiring as quickly as expected.

Government support may be too large

Republican lawmakers and some business groups say overly generous government benefits have greatly reduced the willingness of workers to return to work. The US Treasury has issued 1400 dollars in stimulus checks to most American households to ease the financial pressure on households, and is still launching a series of large-scale fiscal stimulus proposals.

However, the Financial Times said other job market data did not support this argument. For example, the latest weekly initial application data show that the number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits has fallen below 500000 for the first time since the first blockade in 2020.

Unbalanced recovery

There is a large gender gap in the recovery of the job market.While the male labor force continued to pour into the job market last month, the female labor force declined month-on-month. Analysts say this may be because some schools have not fully reopened, lack of services such as after-school care for their children, and many mothers are reluctant to return to full-time work to take care of their children.

In addition, Fed reporter Matthew Boesler said that Hispanic or Hispanic men currently have the smallest employment gap based on demographic data by race, ethnicity and gender in household surveys, with total employment in this group 4.6 per cent lower than before the pandemic. Black or African-American women still have the largest employment gap, 7.7% below the pre-pandemic level.