U.S. adds robust 263K jobs; unemployment at 49-year low: 3.6%

US employers added a robust 263,000 jobs in April, suggesting that businesses have shrugged off earlier concerns that the economy might slow this year and anticipate strong customer demand.

The unemployment rate fell to a five-decade low of 3.6% from 3.8%, though that drop partly reflected an increase in the number of Americans who stopped looking for work. Average hourly pay rose 3.2% from 12 months earlier, a healthy increase though unchanged from the previous month.

Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department showed that solid economic growth is still encouraging strong hiring nearly a decade into the economy’s recovery from the Great Recession. The economic expansion is set to become the longest in history in July.

Many businesses say they are struggling to find workers. Some have taken a range of steps to fill jobs, including training more entry-level workers, loosening educational requirements and raising pay.

The brightening picture represents a sharp improvement from the start of the year. At the time, the government was enduring a partial shutdown, the stock market had plunged, trade tensions between the United States and China were flaring and the Federal Reserve had just raised short-term interest rates in December for a fourth time in 2018. Analysts worried that the economy might barely expand in the first three months of the year.

Yet the outlook soon brightened. Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the Fed would put rate hikes on hold. Trade negotiations between the U.S. and China made some progress. The economic outlook in some other major economies improved. Share prices rebounded.