In the United States, 266,000 jobs were added in April. That is much less than the 1 million new jobs that economists had predicted on average.
Unemployment remained virtually unchanged at 6.1 percent.
Economists expected a much stronger increase due to the advanced vaccination campaign against the coronavirus. This allows many parts of the economy to reopen.
The reopening of shops and catering establishments increased the demand for labour in those sectors, but this was offset elsewhere. For example, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs were lost among delivery and parcel carriers, which were in high demand during the height of the lockdowns.
In March, 770,000 jobs were added, according to new calculations. The unemployment rate is still much higher than before the corona pandemic. In February 2020, the unemployment rate was still 3.5 percent.