US Adds 253K Jobs in April, Beats Expectations for 180K; Bitcoin (BTC) price falls on the news

The US added 253,000 jobs in April, up from a downwardly revised 165,000 in March and above economists’ forecast of 180,000, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report.

The unemployment rate was 3.4%, up from 3.5% in March and beating expectations at 3.6%.

Bitcoin (BTC) price fell about 1% to $28,900 in the minutes after the news.

Although employment has slowed slightly in recent months, the employment picture has remained strong, prompting the US Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates in an attempt to bring inflation down to its 2% target. At its meeting earlier this week, the Fed raised benchmark Fed Funds for a 10th straight session – bringing the target range to 5.0% to 5.25% – but indicated it was considering a pause in its rate hike cycle could pull.

While Friday morning jobs numbers are strong, downward revisions for February (326k to 248k) and March (236k to 165k) have erased a combined 149k gains from these two reports. The average job growth over the last three months is 222,000.

Reviewing other details from the April report shows average hourly earnings for the month are 0.5% ahead of 0.3% in March and higher than the 0.3% forecast. Year-on-year, average hourly earnings rose 4.4% in April versus 4.3% in March and a better-than-expected 4.2%.

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