April jobs printed at 428,000 new jobs, above the consensus estimate of 380,000.  The unemployment rate was 3.6 percent.  The Labor Participation Rate was just 62.2 percent, down 20 basis points  (bps, or 1/100th of a percentage point) from last month.  February and March jobs were revised downward by 39,000 net jobs.  The U6, which is total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, ticked up to 7 percent from 6.9 percent last month, but down 10.3 percent from last year.
Real wages, which we define as annualized average weekly wages less the 12 month average trimmed mean inflation rate for Personal Consumption Expenditures, for March (the latest available) were mixed, with Professional and Business Services showing the biggest annualized real wage gains as workers in the Information sector showed the greatest annualized real wage losses. (We detail this data each quarter.)
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