Employment increased by 253,000 jobs in April, beating economists' forecasts, and the unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.4%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Employment continued to trend upward in the professional and business services sector, which added a total of 43,000 jobs in April, including 7,700 in accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services. Other big gains occurred in health care, which added 40,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality (31,000), and social assistance (25,000). The financial activities sectors also added 23,000 in April, despite a number of high-profile banking failures, with job gains seen in insurance carriers and related activities (15,000) and real estate (9,000).
Average hourly earnings increased 16 cents, or 0.5%, to $33.36, after increasing 0.3% in March.
The Labor Department, however, revised downward the job numbers for February and March. February's numbers fell by 78,000, from a gain of 326,000 jobs to 248,000, and the March total was reduced by 71,000, from 236,000 to 165,000. With those two revisions, employment in February and March combined was 149,000 lower than previously reported by the BLS.
"The increase of 7,700 jobs across accounting, tax prep, bookkeeping and payroll in April are indicative of the ever-increasing demand for practitioners across these practice areas," said Werner Barnard, chief revenue and growth officer at Sapro, which provides workforce talent to public accounting firms. "This demand is fueled in part by fewer new entrants and graduates into the profession and an increase in retirements and exits from the profession. It deserves to be noted that CPA firms of all sizes are experiencing some of their best years ever, especially in 2021 and 2022. Both years were extremely kind to these firms. This does, in a way, create a very delicate balancing act between a firm's growth strategy and access to skilled talent, ultimately forcing considerable thought toward talent outsource solutions."
The implications of the job report on the Federal Reserve's interest rate decisions are unclear. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve voted to raise interest rates by 0.25 of a percentage point, but signaled it might take a pause on future interest rate hikes after a series of banking failures.
