Weekly Economic Trends and Indicators

The Headlines:

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that seasonally adjusted U.S. nonfarm payroll employment increased by 115,000 in April. This was well above market expectations, which were mostly around 50,000. Net revisions for February and March were -16,000 with February revised down 23,000 and March revised up 7,000. The U.S. unemployment rate was unchanged from February at 4.3%.

In another release, the BLS reported that seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll employment increased by 300 in the Quad Cities metro area in March to 183,500. This was down from the revised 184,900 in January, but higher than the last three months of 2025.

The Details:

Nationally, goods producing employment was essentially flat in April, with construction adding 9,000 jobs. Durable goods manufacturing added only 2,000 jobs, while nondurable manufacturing was down 4,000 from March.

Private service providing firms added 113,000 jobs in April. Health care added 37,300 jobs. Other sectors experiencing strong gains included retail trade (+21,800) and transportation and warehousing (+30,300). Most other categories saw much smaller gains or losses.

Federal government jobs continued to decline (-9,000) while state and local government were essentially unchanged.

At the local level, March employment in most categories were within +/-100 of their February levels before seasonal adjustment. Categories where employment changed by more than 100 were mining, logging, and construction (+400), education and health services (+300), and government (+200).

The Context:

This was a solid report from the headline, although it continues to be the case that job growth is mainly happening in a small number of sectors. Locally, the gains in construction employment (by far the most dominant part of “mining, logging, and construction”) are encouraging.  Even the winter seasonal lows in construction are nearly 10% higher than the pre-COVID trend seasonal lows.

This, together with recent inflation data (a topic for next week’s blog) helped push interest rate expectations higher compared to a week ago. The market still expects no change in the fed funds target for the rest of this year. However as of today, according to CME FedWatch, the fed funds futures probabilities are leaning more toward a rate increase than a rate cut by September. Still, the probability of either a rate increase or rate cut is very small.

Next week: Inflation update