US Job Growth Robust

Well, some better news to add to the rather mixed and even gloomy recent US data:

U.S. employers created a surprisingly large 274,000 new jobs in April and added more workers in each of the two preceding months than first thought, the Labor Department said on Friday in a report that may ease fears about economic growth.

The April jobs total far outstripped Wall Street economists' expectations for 170,000 new jobs. Further underlining the surge, the government said 93,000 more jobs were created in February and March than it previously reported -- 146,000 in March instead of 110,000 and a whopping 300,000 in February instead of 243,000.

The unemployment rate, however, which is calculated from a separate survey, was unchanged at 5.2 percent in April.