US Non-Farm payrolls came in at -20,000 jobs for April. The consensus was -80,000, matching the previous numbers for March.

Translation from EconoSpeak™ to regular English: The US economy had fewer layoffs for jobs that don’t involve working on a farm, the government or a private house, for the month of April than those in the towers of Wall Street expected. The data represents 80% of the workforce involved in the economy.

This is different from the job numbers from yesterday, where a private firm announced its research on announced layoffs. Yesterday’s data was far less broad, and focused on only announced cuts and primarily in the financial sector.

What does this all mean?

Well, it’s good that the numbers beat expectations, although this is the longest string of consecutive declines since Feb-June 2003. So there are pluses and minuses. The data will definitely add fuel to the camp who believe that we are near the end of the downturn, and that recovery is on the way. (via U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)