The economy added 431,000 employment in March despite concerns over slowing growth
Key takeaways:
- Nonfarm payrolls rose by 431,000 in March, a bit below the 490,000 estimates and under February’s upwardly adjusted 750,000.
- The unemployment rate fell to 3.6%, below anticipations.
- The first quarter ended with almost 1.7 million employment added despite the miss.
- Leisure and hospitality led the earnings, followed by professional and business services and retail trade.
Amid skyrocketing inflation and concerns regarding a looming recession, the U.S. economy added fewer jobs than anticipated in March as the labor market increased tighter.
Nonfarm payrolls grew by 431,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate was 3.6%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones looked for 490,000 on payrolls and 3.7% for the jobless level.
An alternative estimate of unemployment, including discouraged employees and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons, dropped to a seasonally adjusted 6.9%, down 0.3 percentage points from the last month.
The unemployed metrics moved as the labor force participation rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 62.4%, to within one end of its pre-pandemic level in February 2020. The labor force increased by 418,000 workers and is now within 174,000 of the pre-pandemic state.
According to anticipations, average hourly profits, a closely watched inflation metric, increased 0.4% in the month. On a 12-month basis, pay increased almost 5.6%, just past the estimate. The average workweek, which figures into productivity, hemmed down by 0.1 hours to 34.6 hours.
“All in all, nothing surprising about this report. Nothing was shocking,” said Simona Mocuta, chief economist at State Street Global Advisors. “Even if this statement came in at zero, I would even say this is a very beneficial labor market.”
As has been the case through much of the Covid pandemic, leisure and hospitality led job creation with a growth of 112,000.