Unemployment

The net change in employment rose 19,200 jobs in the month of April.  This was greater than expected.  The unemployment rate at 6.1% is the highest rate since June 2007.  The low was 5.8%. 

Construction (+16,200), food and accomodation (+22.200), education (+13,800) and energy sectors benefitted the most.  While agriculture (-5,400), manufacturing (-14,900) and Managment (-11,700), led the job losses.

The German Unemployment number comes out at 7.9% from the previous 7.8%.  No change was expected.

This rise in the unemployment has caused a drop in the EUR across the board.  Several more EUR data releases are out at 5:00 AM led by the CPI Flash Estimate, with the ECB's Trichet speaking around 8:00 AM.

Revisions are worse with the last month going to -76,000 from -63,000

Pieces:

Construction -51,000
Manufacturing -48,000
Financial  - -5,000
Governement +18,000
Health and Educ  +42,000
Leisure and Hosp  +18,000

Analysis: 

The US Unemployment statistics will be released today at 8:30 ET. The expectations are for a gain of 65,000 jobs in the key NFP figure.  This may have been moved up a bit on the back of the ADP report on Wednesday which showed a gain of 130,000.   Since ADP does not include Government workers their figure is implying a gain of 155,000 (government adds 25,000 jobs on average per month).  Last month the figure was 18,000.  The 6 month average gain has been 87,000.