New York () — All signs pointed to a cooling off in the job market. Instead, the most recent report showed the unemployment rate fell to 3.4% in April after 253,000 jobs were added last month.
But hiring is not strong across the board and is concentrated in a handful of industries.
“Employers continue to hire in-demand skills while reducing non-essential staff,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president and chief business officer of ManpowerGroup, an employment agency.
This is where recruitment was strongest
Most of the new jobs last month came from gains in professional and business services, health care, leisure and hospitality, specialty construction contractors, and food and beverage services.
In total these five industries or sectors hired 165,000 new workers in April. That is equivalent to 65% of the total jobs added.
Professional and business services, which include a wide range of jobs such as accountants, lawyers and engineers, added 43,000 jobs, the biggest gain across all industries. Median hourly earnings for industry workers increased $0.24 to $40.20. That’s 20% higher than what the average private sector worker earned last month.
where they fired workers
Although the jobs report showed a positive net gain, there were some sizeable layoffs.
The biggest cuts affect workers who are involved in helping other workers get hired, such as recruiters, career coaches and human resource professionals. In that sector, known as employment services, there were 24,000 layoffs last month.
“This is the year of efficiency,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. “Companies tell recruiters to do more with less and cut costs after two years of spending whatever it takes to fill jobs.”
Some of the other notable job cuts were in transit and ground passenger services, where 8,100 workers were laid off; and building construction, where 3,600 workers were laid off. Transportation and passenger service jobs include people who work within the public transportation system, as well as taxi and school bus drivers.
On the other hand, commercial real estate is under a lot of stress lately. Many employees continue to work from home and leave large numbers of office building floors vacant. Higher interest rates also cause developers to delay new construction projects.
