News of the economy's demise appear premature

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April payroll employment rises a more-than-expected 244,000 (Consensus: +190,000; Decision Economics: +172,000), following on upward-revised increases of 221,000 (was 216,000) in March and 235,000 (was 194,000) in February.

The general picture is much more encouraging to confidence in the upward momentum of the economy than as expected and unrevised results would have been. The new increase overshot the indication given by initial claims numbers in the month--suggesting, very critically, that the new-hiring side of the labor market has accelerated, even as layoffs have picked up. Severe downgradings of the May outlook--and of the medium-term outlook--will be held in abeyance because of that positive development.

In April, private employment rose a solid 268,000 in a very widespread way.

Another standout feature of the report was an upgraded income picture, with average hourly earnings up a mild 0.1% in April, but with upward revisions to both March (+0.2% vs unch) and February (+0.1% vs unch).

Those revisions will be reflected in upward revisions to personal income--and the new picture of ongoing wagerate growth is more encouraging for the outlook than the stagnation that seemed to be occurring before.