U.S. employers added significantly more jobs than expected for the second straight month, showing a labor market that remains resilient despite the elevated uncertainty brought by the war with Iran.
Nonfarm payrolls grew by 115,000 in April, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures published Friday. The numbers far surpassed the 65,000 median estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Additionally, already strong March numbers were revised up to 185,000. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3%.
Because the March data was collected before the war’s economic fallout took hold, April’s report offers the first full snapshot of the labor market post-invasion.
“The labor market is hanging in there,” said Ryan Sweet, chief global economist at Oxford Economics. “We’re creating enough jobs to keep the unemployment rate stable. So overall, the job market is hanging tough.”
STRONG JOBS, HIGHER RATES?
In line with the long-standing trend, the job growth in April was largely driven by gains in the healthcare and social assistance sectors, which accounted for nearly 54,000 jobs. Since the end of 2024, healthcare and social assistance has added over 900,000 payrolls, while the rest of the private sector has lost over 250,000 jobs.
Another sector that saw surprisingly high gains of 30,000 jobs last month was transportation and warehousing—a shift driven by 38,000 added payrolls for couriers and messengers. According to Ken Kim, senior economist at KPMG, this is “a peculiar way,” in which impacts of the war might show up in the report.
“With the gasoline prices moving sharply higher, people probably resorted more to ordering online so they didn’t have to drive anywhere,” said Kim. “So that could actually help the transportation employment to pick up because you had e-commerce companies delivering more items to households.”
However, those same soaring fuel prices are already eliminating payrolls: 17,000 workers lost their jobs this month following the closure of Spirit Airlines, which the company attributed to a ‘sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices.’
Despite casualties, the overall resilience of the labor market gives the Federal Reserve further justification to maintain—or, as some economists argue, even raise— current interest rates. At its April 29 meeting, the Fed held rates steady at the 3.5% to 3.75% range.
“The Fed could kind of be less concerned about the labor market falling apart now, because we’ve had two consecutive months of upward surprises in the data,” said Kim. “We believe they may need to raise rates sometime this summer to counter the inflationary impulse from the rising energy prices.”
IF I DIE, I DIE
While the broader economy continues to add payrolls, the information sector, which includes many tech companies, continues to move in the opposite direction. In April, it registered the most job losses of any industry, at 13,000.
This fact is consistent with the data from the latest Challenger, Gray and Christmas report showing the tech sector was responsible for 40% of all job cuts in April, noted Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at U.S. Bank. For the second straight month, AI led the reasons for layoffs—it was cited in one out of every four eliminated roles. This doesn’t always mean that workers are literally being replaced by AI, as companies often move money from payrolls to spending on AI.
“I feel for people who are suffering now with this change, but I am optimistic for future jobs,” said Bovino. “I suspect that AI is going to generate many new industries and many more jobs later on. But in the short run there could very well be some pain.”
So far in 2026, more than 101,000 employees—already 82% of last year’s total—have been laid off across 120 tech companies, according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks industry job losses. However, these staff reductions typically don’t register as lost jobs in government statistics for months until the final severance check is cut.
In April, Oracle fired 30,000 workers via email. Intel announced it was parting ways with 22,000 employees. Microsoft offered early retirement to about 7% of its U.S. workforce.
On May 20, Meta is set to announce the names of roughly 8,000 workers being cut as part of its pivot toward AI. The company has also closed 6,000 open positions.
Aaron Chambers is among the thousands of Meta employees waiting for the ax to fall. He works as a firmware engineer at Reality Labs, the division developing virtual- and augmented-reality devices that already went through 10% cuts in January.
“At this point it’s kind of like, ‘If I die, I die,’ you know?” said Chambers, 30. “The atmosphere is… I guess apathetic is a good term for it. Most of us are used to it at this point.”
While Chambers acknowledges he “probably should be” preemptively looking for a new job, the generous severance at Meta have provided a psychological cushion.
“If I get laid off, I think I’m going to take a month off and try to chill out,” he said. “But I know how hard it is to find a job these days. I lucked out really hard when I got a job after graduation in 2019. There was a big spike in hiring back then, before the pandemic.”
Chambers’ concerns are more than reasonable. Simon Shimel, a mechanical engineer who was laid off from Meta in early February, is already navigating that grim reality.
“The job market is just awful,” Shimel, 26, said. “You would think that with four years of experience, two of which at such a big company like Meta, it would be easier to find a job than coming straight out of college. But it’s not. It’s actually worse.”
Three months into his search, Shimel has submitted dozens of applications. A recent interview with Amazon left him discouraged.
“It was not great,” the former mechanical engineer at Meta said. “I was not too thrilled, because they were clearly looking for someone different. But let’s see.”
In the meantime, Shimel turned to a long-time passion. Last month, he built a portable DJ controller. Now he plans to sell the kits, so that others can assemble their own controllers.
“It’s been going great, and I enjoy it,” he said. “But I need to find a job so I can fund the side project until the side project could potentially become my main project.”