‘BOFFO!’ CNN’s Berman Draws Laugh From ADP Chief With Gushing Description of Hot Jobs Report

ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson got a kick out of CNN anchor John Berman’s old-timey expression of enthusiasm for the April jobs report.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a jobs report Friday morning that showed much better-than-expected job growth of 253,000 jobs created in April, with an unemployment rate that ticked down slightly to 3.4%.

On Friday’s edition of CNN News Central, co-anchor Kate Bolduan and Berman were both stunned by the news. Bolduan brought in Christine Romans to explain the report, and let out a surprised “Wow!” at the strength of the job market compared to the pre-pandemic economy:

KATE BOLDUAN: Chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here. I don’t know what to make of this now. Please help.

CHRISTINE ROMANS: Resilient. Durable. The job market just keeps chugging here. Hiring picking up in April. 253,000 jobs added. I went back to 2019. There’s only one month in 2019 that was greater than that. I mean, so you think of that pre-pandemic–.

KATE BOLDUAN: WOW!

CHRISTINE ROMANS: This would be considered a very, very strong job number. And we’ve been looking for jobs growth to start to slow and have seen some evidence of that elsewhere, but not in this report. 3.4% unemployment rate, quite frankly, is near generational lows. 3.4% is is quite low here. So that’s a really important one to watch. And I’ve been digging in these numbers. It looks like 4.7% unemployment rate for black Americans. That’s a record low. So that means the job market is strong and it’s starting to permeate through all different kinds of of sectors and demographics this down.

But later in the show, it was Berman who brought the excitement of old Hollywood into the mix, drawing a laugh from Richardson — who agreed with the sentiment, if not the nomenclature:

JOHN BERMAN: Nela Richardson, she’s the chief economist for the payroll firm ADP. One way to describe this jobs report, and I keep looking at the numbers, is BOFFO! I mean, how do you see it?

NELA RICHARDSON: (Laughs) That wasn’t the first word that came to mind, but it’s a very strong report.

And you know what made all the difference? The difference was made by the fact that people came off the sidelines and into the labor market. We’re seeing labor force participation rate in this report for prime age workers finally exceed what it was before the pandemic. That’s good news for labor supply. And it means that the labor market has some momentum in terms of hiring, too. So very strong report. And any adjective that you have that rhymes with strong is great for me.

JOHN BERMAN: Boffo does not rhyme with strong. But. But. But it means the same thing.

Watch above via CNN News Central.