UPDATE - US adds 253,000 jobs in April, unemployment falls to 3.4%

ADDS PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S REMARKS

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The US economy added 253,000 jobs in April, coming much higher than market estimates, while the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, the Labor Department announced on Friday.

The market expectation for nonfarm payrolls was a 180,000 gain in April.

Job additions for March were revised down by 71,000 from 236,000 to 165,000, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.4% in April from 3.5% in March, while the market estimate for it was to come in at 3.6%.

The number of unemployed people in the US showed little change in April, slightly falling to 5.7 million from 5.8 million the month before.

Both the labor force participation rate at 62.6% and the employment-population ratio at 60.4% remained unchanged last month.

President Joe Biden called the jobs reports "good news" during a meeting with his "Investing in America" cabinet at the White House.

"That is on top of the 12 million jobs we have already added since we came into the office," he said, adding that the unemployment rate is "the lowest in 50 years."

Biden emphasized that employment among the Black population has hit a record low, and said "Working age Americans are participating in the labor force at the highest rate in 15 years ... and working age women are participating at the highest rate in 75 years."

The president noted that the inflation rate has come down 40% since last summer, when it climbed to its highest level in almost 41 years, adding inflation rate has been slowing down for nine consecutive months.

Biden also urged to raise the debt ceiling, and stressed that this should be achieved without any conditions attached to it by the Republicans.

He warned that failure to increase the debt limit in order to prevent a default would have "a catastrophic impact" on the US economy.