Major disappointment: America added way fewer jobs than expected in April

The US economy added only 266,000 jobs in April at the anniversary of the worst job loss for any month on record. This was far less than forecasts of economists, who had predicted America would add 1 million jobs last month.

The unemployment rate rose to 6.1% in April, up from 6% a month earlier.

It was the slowest improvement for jobs since January. Experts predicted that the vaccine rollout and the reopening of the economy would jolt hiring. But the April jobs number show that the road to recovery from the pandemic remains bumpy.

The job market isn't just snapping back to what it was before Covid-19. The dislocations across different industries and worker demographics has been too big to recover from while Covid-19 continues to infect tens of thousands of people every day.