Well, the Fed said the recent disappointing economic data would be “transitory” and based on the just released jobs report, it may have been somewhat right, because after growing only by a revised 79,000 jobs in March, payrolls rebounded in April, rising by more than the expected 190K to 211K, in line with the optimistic whisper estimates. The not so great news: March payrolls were revised materially lower, and denying expectations of a solid upward revision, March payrolls were said to rise by only 79K, below the 98K initially reported.

Nonfarm private payrolls rose 194k vs prior 77k; est. 190k, range 155k-270k from 39 economists surveyed. Manufacturing payrolls rose 6k after rising 13k in the prior month; economists estimated 10k, range 0k to 15k from 23 economists surveyed

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised up from +219,000 to +232,000, and the change for March was revised down from +98,000 to +79,000. With these revisions, employment gains in February and March combined were 6,000 lower than previously reported.

The change in household employment was up 156k vs the prior +472k.

The unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped, declining from 4.5% to 4.4%, below the 4.6% expected and to the lowest level since May 2007, as the participation rate declined.  Underemployment rate 8.6% vs prior 8.9%

In April, the number of Americans not in the labor force rose by 162K to 94.375MM, the highest of 2017.

Perhaps the most important indicator the Fed is looking at, Average Hourly Earnings, was somewhat soft, with the Y/Y number missing expectations of a 2.7% increase, rising only 2.5%, even as the monthly increase of 0.3% came in line with expectations, although here too the March monthly increase was revised downward from 0.2% to 0.1%, suggesting wage growth remains very much elusive for most workers. 

The silver lining here is that average weekly hours rose fractionally to 34.4 from 34.3, in turn helping drive average weekly earning up to 2.6%, the highest since December,