U.S. added 263,000 jobs in April - beating expectations

The U.S. economy added 263,000 jobs in April, notching a record 103 straight months of job gains and signaling the current economic expansion shows little sign of stalling.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.6%, the Labor Department said Friday, the lowest since 1969. The official unemployment rate has been at or below 4% for more than a year.

Hiring was strong across most sectors with especially large gains business services (76,000 jobs added), construction (33,000 jobs added) and health care (27,000 jobs added). Economists were watching government employment closely since the U.S. Census is beginning to ramp up hiring ahead of the 2020 Census. The federal government added 12,500 jobs in April, which likely included some boost from the Census.

The United States has more job openings than unemployed people, a situation some economists call "full employment" since most jobseekers are able to land a job.

In the years after the Great Recession there was deep concern that wages weren't rising and Americans who had lost jobs had lost hope of getting one again. But there's been good news on both of those fronts in recent months as the abundance of "we're hiring" signs across the nation has helped lured people back into the labor force and push pay higher.

Low unemployment has forced employers to raise wage and become more aggressive about hiring and training workers. Average hourly earnings rose 3.2% in the past year, well above inflation, and lower wage workers enjoyed some of the largest gains as companies scrambled to fill jobs and many states have raised their minimum wage.

Business leaders increasingly say their number one challenge is finding enough people to fill job openings. McClane Company is a large trucking and warehouse firm that specializes in moving food and grocery items around the country. They are advertising truck driving jobs for $70,000 a year and a $6,000 sign on bonus in Jessup, Pennsylvania, but even at that level of pay it's been tough to get enough people in the door.

"The economy is good, but that's very difficult for employers," said Joe Stagnaro, president of McLane's Pennsylvania operations. "The people you want to hire are employed by someone else."

Stagnaro decided to try something new in addition to the many internet job listings, billboards and newspaper ads that McLane uses to try to get the word out about openings. He just inked a deal with a truck driving school to train people to become truckers right on McLane's site and the company is picking up the tab for the training. He's had a lot of interest from the company's warehouse workers who are eager to learn more skills, earn a commercial driver's license and transition into a higher paying job.

There's no official government measure of how much money companies are investing in training their own workers, but as unemployment remains low and wages rise, more and more managers say they are looking to grow talent internally instead of trying to poach it from other companies.