By Emma Ockerman

US job growth continued to strengthen in April as the unemployment rate remained flat, offering another sign that the labor market might be stabilizing.

Payrolls rose by 115,000 last month and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.3%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had estimated a median gain of 65,000 jobs following March’s blockbuster increase of 178,000 roles, which was revised upward to 185,000.

However, February’s jobs report was revised lower to a loss of 156,000 positions.

Economists have been looking for signs that the labor market, which was on ice for much of 2025, is warming up. There was already one glimmer of positivity this week in private payroll growth, according to data from ADP: Private employers added 109,000 jobs in April, the fastest monthly gain since January 2025. And looking backward, March’s hiring rate improved to its highest level in nearly two years, government data released Tuesday showed, though job openings declined slightly and the layoff rate ticked up.

Still, Friday’s jobs report showed that last month’s gains were, once again, driven in part by the health care and social assistance supersector, which added nearly 54,000 roles. Transportation and warehousing also showed some strength, bringing on more than 30,000 jobs, especially among couriers and messengers.

Employment in information, meanwhile, slid by 13,000 roles, and is down by 342,000 since its most recent peak in November 2022, the Labor Department said. Financial activities jobs also declined by 11,000.

But, while overall monthly payroll growth this year is lower than what was notched in much of 2023 and 2024, there’s a reason why economists aren’t freaked out — and why even a smaller-than-once-typical gain might appear strong.

As the population ages and immigration plummets, the amount of job growth needed to sustain a level unemployment rate is sliding, a point Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made earlier this year.

He noted in March that while there had been “zero net job creation in the private sector,” that may be “about what the economy needs in terms of dealing with very, very low — nonexistent, really — growth in the labor force, which, of course, we’ve never had in our history.”

Emma Ockerman is a reporter covering the economy and labor for Yahoo Finance. You can reach her at emma.ockerman@yahooinc.com.

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