Welcome to the NewsHour. There was surprising strength in the latest jobs report. Employers added 172,000 jobs last month, the third straight month of gains.

93,000 more jobs were added in March in April than previously estimated, and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.3%.

Overall, the labor market appears strong, despite concerns about the war in Iran,

rising prices, and artificial intelligence. Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National

Economic Council, celebrated two straight months of job growth over 170,000. What we're seeing is an

enormous amount of positive momentum in hiring, obviously. You're right, that a couple of hundred and 70s in a row, that's a great couple of months.

But then having upper divisions of around 100,000 means that this is a job market that's hitting on all cylinders.

For more, we're joined by Diane Swung.

She's chief economist at KPMG.

That's a multinational accounting and advisory firm.

So, Diane, this was an unexpectedly positive Chob's report. How big a deal is this?

Well, one of the biggest upside surprises was in local government hiring, which increased over 50,000.

So that was where a lot of the upside surprise was.

But, of course, we did see those upward revisions as well. Almost all the job gains that we saw

were concentrated in the service sector. And I think it's important to look at what's under the hood,

even as good as those numbers looked, we still saw very elevated numbers of what we call the

underemployed, those having to take part-time instead of full-time work or discouraged workers,

and the duration of unemployment continue to rise.

And those largest gains, as you mentioned, in leisure and hospitality.

Help us understand what's fueling that.

Well, what we're seeing is the top third of wage earners are seeing their wages pick up much more than inflation.

And they're spending it along with the upcoming World Cup and preparations for that in host cities.

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