America’s economy added far fewer jobs than expected in April

RECOVERY FROM serious sickness is not always smooth. As with the human body, so with the economy. The American economy has been bouncing back from the deep recession associated with the covid-19 pandemic—but the latest monthly jobs report by the Bureau of Labour Statistics, published on May 7th, looks like quite a setback. Some economists had expected that 1m jobs or more might be added to non-farm payrolls in April. In fact just 266,000 were. March’s figure was revised down, too (although February’s was marked up). The unemployment rate, which had tumbled from 14.8% in April 2020 to 6% in March, ticked up to 6.1% last month, as more workers were drawn back into the labour force.