US: April job growth marks a step down – Nomura

Research Team at Nomura, notes that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) last week reported that a net new 160k jobs were added to US nonfarm payrolls in April, close to their out-of-Consensus forecast (Nomura: 175k, Consensus: 200k).

Key Quotes

“With GDP growth slowing over the last three quarters and job growth still averaging near 200k, it has always been our expectation that we would have to see some slowdown in the pace of job growth. In addition, other high frequency data such as manufacturing surveys, factory orders, shipments and production data and even consumer spending data have pointed to broadly slower economic momentum.

Moreover, other data suggest that demand for labor has slowed. Measures of labor demand such as the JOLTS job opening rate and the NFIB’s percentage of firms planning to increase employment index have moved sideways in recent months, after increasing previously.”