The unemployment rate is low at 4.3% and likely to stay that way

Robots aren't replacing lots of human workers soon.

Are companies adding more workers after an unusually weak stretch of hiring? The jury is out, but signs of recovery in the labor market are emerging.

Here's what to watch in the April employment report.

New reality

Businesses and governments likely created a seemingly mediocre 55,000 new jobs in April, economists polled by the Wall Street Journal predict.

Just a few years ago, an increase of that size would have been viewed as a warning sign for the economy. Job growth averaged 150,000 to 200,000 a month in the decade sandwiching the 2020-2021 pandemic.

Not any longer.

The working-age population has flatlined due to baby boomers aging out of the labor force and ultrastrict controls on immigration under the Trump administration.

Economists say the U.S. only needs to add about 50,000 new jobs a month - perhaps even zero - to keep the unemployment rate low. The jobless rate stood at a low 4.3% in March.

By the new standard, a 55,000 increase in new jobs would be just fine.

A welcome surprise?

Employment could surprise by beating Wall Street's estimate for the second month in a row - if other labor indicators are to be believed.

The giant payroll processor ADP, for example, said private-sector businesses filled 109,000 jobs in April, the biggest gain in 15 months.

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits, meanwhile, fell to a 57-year low at the end of April.

And job openings rose sharply in early spring, another survey showed.

Keeping caution

Investors should be wary of taking any employment numbers at face value. The jobs report has been up and down lately - some economists would say erratic - and it's hard to find a major improvement in hiring trends.

The past two months give a good example. The number of new jobs added in March actually rose by a surprising 178,000, marking the biggest increase in 15 months. But strong hiring appeared to be weather-related.

How so? Employment fell by 133,000 in February during a severe winter freeze when parking was hard to find and people stayed off the road.

Add March and February together, and employment rose by a scant 23,000 on average in the two months.

Unemployment rate

The pace of hiring in the first three months of this year - 68,000 new jobs a month - seems to be enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising.

Forecasters predict the jobless rate will remain flat at 4.3% in April.

As long as it stays below 4.5%, nobody will worry. The last time the unemployment rate topped 5%, excluding the pandemic, was more than a decade ago, in 2015.

Who is hiring?

Perhaps the best way to tell whether the jobs report is a good one is by how many industries are hiring.

Most of the new jobs created in the past year have been concentrated in healthcare. Hardly any other industries have been hiring.

The ADP jobs report suggested hiring is spreading to other sectors. It's good news indeed - if it were true.

"We are starting to see sectors that have been underperforming starting to improve," said chief economist Nela Richardson of ADP. "Health care employment has some companions in terms of job growth."

Fed won't be swayed

The results of the employment report are unlikely to push the Fed to cut rates soon - or even consider raising them. The Fed is more worried about rising inflation than a sluggish labor market.

The April jobs report would have to be shockingly poor to worry the Fed, and even then, it might not be viewed as credible. No other labor-market indicators have shown a deterioration.