Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 428,000 jobs added in April.

From EPI senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):

Read the full Twitter thread here.

While the share of the population with a job ticked down slightly in April, it has been trending strongly in the right direction for months. I’m optimistic this will simply be a blip on the way to a full recovery in EPOPs by the end of 2022. pic.twitter.com/xn9ompXluD

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) May 6, 2022

The labor market bounce back remains very strong as job growth over the last year averaged 550k a month. Strikingly stronger than the prolonged recovery from the Great Recession. The labor market is now just below pre-pandemic levels. pic.twitter.com/szj7jegrPy

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) May 6, 2022

The largest gains in April were in leisure and hospitality, up 78,000 jobs. Each month gains in that sector eat away at its jobs shortfall, currently 1.4 million below pre-pandemic levels. pic.twitter.com/bYaLvCkIXI

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) May 6, 2022

From EPI president, Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz):

Read the full Twitter thread here. 

It’s not yet mission accomplished! The recession left a huge hole, and depending on how you measure the counterfactual, the total gap in the labor market right now is somewhere between 4 and 6 million jobs. But that gap is closing rapidly. 2/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) May 6, 2022

Also, wage growth appears to be moderating. Over the last three months, wages grew at an annualized rate of 3.7%. In the 12 months before that, they grew 5.4%. 4/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) May 6, 2022

Remember, the rise in inflation has not been driven by anything that looks like an overheating labor market—it’s been driven by supply-chain bottlenecks and higher corporate profit margins. 6/ https://t.co/IHU2mcLKhh

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) May 6, 2022

Unlike in the Great Recession and its aftermath, the administration and congress did what was needed to spur a robust recovery this time around (namely CARES and ARPA). We would have MILLIONS fewer jobs today if we had not enacted the covid relief and recovery measures we did. 8/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) May 6, 2022

But all groups are seeing far faster recoveries *than they did following the Great Recession*, and that’s about CARES and ARPA. The importance of those policies to labor market healing following the worst recession in our lifetime cannot be overstated. 10/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) May 6, 2022