Friday, May 7, 2010

April employment information for U.S. is positive surprise

The Labor Department announced today that April saw 290,000 jobs added to U.S. payrolls (as compared to expectations of 180,000).  Additionally, March job creation was revised up to 230,000 from the originally announced 162,000.  For the last 4 months, job create has averaged about 140,000 per month.

It is important to consider that the U.S. continues to experience an economic recovery that is stronger than most economists and market observers were expecting.  This is just one piece of data that investors must digest, as concerns over a possible debt default by Greece (the costs of a Greece bailout are similarly concerning) spread over Europe and the world.

We simply remind investors not to lose sight of the hard economic data (like job creation) in the midst of all of the attention given to items like dramatic market swings and chaos in Greece.