What to expect in Friday’s jobs report

By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — When the April jobs report is released Friday morning, it is expected to show that the US labor market added 67,000 positions.

If so, that’s roughly one-third of the 178,000 jobs created in March.

While in comparison the April total may seem like a sharp deceleration or a tepid month of employment growth, when viewed in isolation, it could seem solid or resilient — maybe even normal.

There are plenty of logical explanations for the stark shift and the undulating payroll numbers for the first few months of 2026; however, there’s also something much bigger afoot: The job market is in the throes of an evolution.

“The labor market is absolutely transforming, and it’s not going to look the same as our pre-2020 trends,” Nicole Bachaud, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, told CNN in an interview.

There’s not a clear picture yet, she said, of what the new normal is.

The US job market and the broader economy have been subject to a slew of exogenous shocks during the past six years – chief among them being a once-in-a-century global pandemic.

In the backdrop, however, is a series of changes more structural in nature (some of which have even been helped along by those outside shocks):

• The US population is aging. Labor force growth is slowing as members of the large Baby Boomer cohort retire; industries such as health care and social services have greatly expanded as a result.
• There’s been a sharp reduction in net immigration. Trump administration policies of immigration restrictions and mass deportations have shifted the trajectory of what was a decades-long driver of labor supply. This shift also reduces labor demand through a drop in consumer spending.
• Technological innovations, notably artificial intelligence, are reshaping jobs, industries, and the economy. Although still early days, the adoption of AI is contributing to changes in the occupational mix; has been directly cited as a reason (or, perhaps, scapegoat) for layoffs; and has shown potential to influence economy-shaping dynamics such as productivity and wages.

A roller coaster-like effect

Getting a firm read on the labor market in 2026 has been like riding a roller coaster: The economy added an estimated 160,000 jobs in January and lost 133,000 jobs in February before bouncing back to that March total. (These monthly tallies are still subject to revision.)

The volatility can be partly attributed to several factors, including weather, labor strikes, lower-than-typical post-holiday layoffs, and recalibrations to how the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates payroll changes at new and closed businesses (referred to as the birth-death model).

Those fluctuations in the top-line payroll number could very well continue in the months to come, largely because of the birth-death model changes, said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US.

“In fact, we moved away from really placing an emphasis on any given month, and we’re looking at a smooth three-month average now,” he said.

From January through March, the average monthly gain is sitting at 68,333.

The consensus estimates, at 67,000 jobs added, fall right in line with that average.

The unemployment rate is expected to remain at 4.3%, FactSet estimates show.

Job growth slows as structural changes take hold

April’s projected job growth, however, is likely still running “above trend,” noted Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, which is forecasting a total of 45,000 jobs were added last month.

“The expected April gain should still surpass the breakeven pace needed to keep unemployment steady, which means the unemployment rate is likely to tick down to 4.2%,” Daco wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday.

The “breakeven” rate is the number of monthly jobs added to keep the unemployment rate stable.

And largely because of the three structural factors outlined above (though AI currently to a lesser extent than the other two), the economy doesn’t need to add as many jobs as it once did to keep unemployment from rising.

Because these major shifts are still ongoing, economists and policymakers alike are still trying to home in on that breakeven rate.

Brusuelas, for example, puts his “speed limit for hiring” right now at about 25,000 jobs per month.

Companies cite AI in layoff plans

Plenty of those exogenous factors remain at play: Post-pandemic labor hoarding practices are still unwinding; high uncertainty (triggered by the likes of inflation, tariffs, policy shifts, geopolitical developments and interest rates) has stifled hiring and possibly ushered along some AI adoption; and the potential outstanding effects from the Iran war and oil shock on consumer spending patterns and input costs.

But for now, some of the frequent adjectives used to describe the labor market have been “solid,” “resilient,” and “steady.”

Consumer sentiment surveys, however, show workers and job seekers are more downbeat. The “low-hire, low-fire” labor market has made it harder for some people to get jobs and has resulted in a slowdown of wage gains (which could soon be outstripped by inflation).

The latest data released this week shows the ongoing labor market dynamics haven’t changed dramatically.

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey revealed that hiring bolted higher in March after falling to near-historic lows the month before. Job openings, a closely watched measurement of labor demand, fell for the second consecutive month.

Weekly initial jobless claims, a closely watched proxy for layoffs, hit a 57-year low at the end of April.

However, layoff announcements have picked up speed in the tech industry.

In April, US tech companies announced 33,361 job cuts, accounting for about 40% of the 83,387 cuts announced across all industries last month, according to new data released Thursday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

AI led all reasons for job cuts for the second month in a row, according to Challenger.

Through April, AI has been cited for 49,135 cuts, or about 16% of all announced layoffs during that period, according to the report.

“The [labor] market is shifting, and how we measure it is shifting as well,” ZipRecruiter’s Bachaud said. “On the flip side of that, jobs themselves are shifting.”

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