The U.S. Labor
Department reported on Friday that nonfarm payrolls rose by 303,000 in March after
a downwardly revised 270,000 increase (from 275,000) in January. This marked the
strongest monthly advance since May 2023 (+303,000).
According to
the report, the largest jobs gains occurred in occurred in health care (+72,000),
government (+71,000), and construction (+39,000).
The
unemployment rate decreased to 3.8
per cent from an unrevised 3.9 per cent in the prior month.
Economists had forecast
the nonfarm payrolls to grow by 200,000 and the jobless rate to hold steady at 3.9 per cent.
The labour
force participation rate edged
up to 62.7 per cent in March from an unrevised 62.5 per cent in the previous month, while
hourly earnings for private-sector workers climbed by 0.3 per cent m-o-m (or
$0.12) to $34.69, following
an upwardly downwardly revised 0.2 per cent m-o-m uptick (from +0.1 per cent
m-o-m) in February. Economists had expected the average hourly earnings to jump by 0.3 per cent
m-o-m in March.
Over the year, the average hourly earnings soared 4.1 per cent
in March, following an unrevised 4.3 per cent surge in the previous month. This represented the weakest gain since June
2021 (+3.9 per cent). Economists had predicted the annual wage to increase by 4.1 per cent in March.
The
average workweek increased
0.1 hour to 34.4 hours last month, marginally above economists'
estimate of 34.3 hours.