Jobapalooza, Con't

More good news on the economic front as America added more than 430,000 jobs in March.

Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 431,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate was 3.6%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 490,000 on payrolls and 3.7% for the jobless level.

An alternative measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons fell to a seasonally adjusted 6.9%, down 0.3 percentage points from the previous month.

The moves in the jobless rates came as the labor force participation rate increased one-tenth of a percentage point to 62.4%, to within 1 point of its pre-pandemic level in February 2020. The labor force grew by 418,000 workers and is now within 174,000 of the pre-pandemic state.

Average hourly earnings, a closely watched inflation metric, increased 0.4% on the month, in line with expectations. On a 12-month basis, pay increased nearly 5.6%, just above the estimate. The average work week, which figures into productivity, edged down by 0.1 hour to 34.6 hours.

“All in all, nothing shocking about this report. There was nothing that was really surprising,” said Simona Mocuta, chief economist at State Street Global Advisors. “Even if this report came in at zero, I would still say this is a very healthy labor market.”

As has been the case through much of the pandemic era, leisure and hospitality led job creation with a gain of 112,000.

Professional and business services contributed 102,000 to the total, while retail was up 49,000 and manufacturing added 38,000. Other sectors reporting gains included social assistance (25,000), construction (19,000) and financial activities (16,000).

The survey of households painted an even more optimistic picture, showing a total employment gain of 736,000. That brought the total employment level within 408,000 of where it stood pre-pandemic.

Revisions from prior months also were strong. January’s total rose 23,000 to 504,000, while February was revised up to 750,000 compared to the initial count of 678,000. For the first quarter, job growth totaled 1.685 million, an average of nearly 562,000.

Among individual groups, the Black unemployment rate fell 0.4 percentage points to 6.2%, while the rate for Asians declined to 2.8% and to 4.2% for Hispanics.

 

Again, we're looking at explosive job growth where Biden will have dug us out of the Trump Depression in under 18 months, but this is "the worst economy of your lifetime" according to the people that cost us 22 million jobs in 2020. 

And we're going to put those assholes back in charge, apparently. That's the cruel April Fool's joke.