Economy falls far short of expectations with just 266,000 jobs in April, unemployment rate rises to 6.1%

The economy added far fewer jobs than expected in April, just 266,000, and the unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

The jobs numbers indicate that the pandemic recovery is not proceeding nearly as fast as was hoped. Forecasters had anticipated that the economy would add nearly 1 million nonfarm payroll jobs and that the unemployment rate would drop from March’s 6% down to 5.8%.

"This might be one of the most disappointing jobs reports of all time," said Nick Bunker, who leads North American economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. "The labor market needs to gain 8.2 million jobs to put us back where we were pre-pandemic, not accounting for the jobs that would have been created if the pandemic never happened. Every month job gains don’t accelerate puts us further behind."