The US Dollar remained low over the course of Friday, especially given the fact that the latest results showed a less job creation rate for the US economy in the last month, this starting to raise concerns over the strength of the job market in the following period.

Official data from the US Labor Department shows that the economy added 160k jobs in the month of April, under the forecasted 202k increase. The job additions measured 208k in March revised down from a first 215k hike estimation. The same report is showing that the US unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5% in the passing month, coming in line with expectations. Average hourly earnings went up by 0.3% in April, as broadly expected, after a 0.2% revised previous month’s gain.

The previously mentioned report is more concerning because the payroll-processing company ADP declared on Wednesday that the non-farm employment in the private sector went up by 156k in April, 196K being the forecasted rise.

With regards the monetary policy rate, the Fed said that the decision will depend on the economic development. The jobs reports are now raising questions whether the downbeat sentiment is due to the fact that previous periods figures were only temporary hikes or because of the slowing growth pace in economy.

From the chart above, the evolution of Non-farm Payrolls from January 2014 to April 2016 had a steady line. The monthly added jobs were positive in all this period, with the minimum value of 74,000 at the beginning of 2014 and the maximum value of 321,000 at the end of the same year. Taking into consideration, all the values posted in this period, the average NFP over this was 216,000.

As a result, the Unemployment Rate registered a continuous decline from 6.7% to 5% during the same period (Q1 2014 – Q2 2016). The lowest posting was at 4.9%, and it was registered in March 2016, while January, March and April 2014 had the highest rate of unemployment of 6.7%.

The results of the data above are pointing towards an improvement in the US economy over the last two years. Even though the numbers are close to the pre-crisis low values (lowest Unemployment Rate – 4.4% April 2007), the broadly expected rate hike was put on hold by the Federal Reserve for several times in the last meetings, leaving us with the obvious question: is the job market a real Fed concern?