By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. job growth likely slowed in April amid heightened economic uncertainty because of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff policy, though companies continued to hoard workers, keeping the labor market humming for now.
The Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday is, however, likely to be dismissed as backward-looking and probably will not offer a clear pulse of the economy after gross domestic product contracted in the first quarter under the weight of a deluge of imports as businesses tried to get ahead of tariffs.
Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcement ushered in sweeping duties on most imports from the United States’ trade partners, including raising duties on Chinese goods to 145%, sparking a trade war with Beijing and tightening financial conditions. Trump later delayed higher reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, which economists said was essentially a pause on the whole economy as it left businesses in a state of paralysis and risked a recession if there was no clarity soon.
“This is a situation where the air in the balloon is slowly dissipating out,” said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Boston College. “There’s a certain amount of labor hoarding that’s going on despite the uncertainty across so many different dimensions, on the anticipation that somehow there will be some clarity in terms of direction of policy.”
Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 130,000 jobs last month after rising by 228,000 in March, a Reuters survey of economists showed. Estimates ranged from 25,000 to 195,000 jobs added. Part of the anticipated step-down in payrolls would be due to the fading boost from warmer weather.
The pace of job gains would be more than the 100,000 that economists say are needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate is forecast to have been unchanged at 4.2% last month. While the labor market continues to show resilience amid a reluctance by employers to let go of workers after struggling to find labor during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, warning signs are accumulating.
Business sentiment continues to plummet, which economists expect will at some point give way to layoffs. Already, airlines have pulled their 2025 financial forecasts, citing uncertainty over spending on nonessential travel because of tariffs.
General Motors cut its 2025 profit forecast on Thursday and said it expected a $4-$5 billion tariff hit.
China has ordered its airlines not to take further deliveries of Boeing planes while Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, on Thursday threatened to cancel orders for hundreds of Boeing aircraft if the tariff war leads to materially higher prices.
Amid the uncertainty, the Federal Reserve is expected to keep its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range next week.
POLICY UNCERTAINTY
Economists expect companies will reduce hours before resorting to layoffs. The average workweek has been steadily declining since 2023 and held steady at 34.2 hours in March.
“How much can the labor market absorb and handle this uncertainty that the administration has injected into the economy?” asked Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Budget Lab at Yale. “American businesses are resilient, and there’s a lot that they can overcome, but they can’t overcome everything, and at some point the policy environment is going to really start to bite.”
Most economists expect the tariff drag could become evident in the so-called hard data, including employment and inflation reports, by summer. Surveys, including from the Institute for Supply Management, the Conference Board and University of Michigan, have uniformly painted a dire economic picture.
The Trump administration’s unprecedented and often chaotic campaign spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to drastically shrink the federal government through mass layoffs and deep funding cuts is adding to the rising labor market risks.
Some of the spending cuts have affected schools and medical research. The government and the healthcare sectors have been the key drivers of employment growth. The labor market’s resilience is likely to be underscored by solid wage growth.
Average hourly earnings are forecast to have risen by 0.3%, matching March’s gain. That would raise the annual increase in wages to 3.9% from 3.8%. This has left some economists optimistic that the economy could avoid the dreaded stagflation – tepid growth and high inflation – or worse a recession.
“Generally when there is stagflation, we haven’t seen the labor market be as resilient as it is today,” said Elizabeth Crofoot, a senior economist at Lightcast. “As long as people have jobs, as long as their incomes are not necessarily rising, but steady, and they feel like they can absorb some of the price increases that’s going to allow the economy to be resilient.”
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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