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.
