U.S. employers added a massive 303,000 total payrolls in March, marking the fifth consecutive month of larger-than-expected job gains.
The monthly figure was higher than the 200,000 job gain expected by economists.
A strong job market has kept interest rates historically high, but Wall Street has been wary of making predictions from initial numbers in recent months as the Labor Department makes major revisions. .
February’s surprisingly strong 275,000 job growth revised downward to 270,000, with the Labor Department on Friday slashing January’s blockbuster 353,000 additional positions to 256,000. Fixed.
Federal officials announced last month that the initially reported large increase of 333,000 in December had fallen to 290,000.
For 2023 as a whole, the revision reduced 520,000 roles from the original estimate to counter the historical trend of final numbers typically being higher than initial measurements. According to CNBC.
The closely watched employment report also showed that the unemployment rate had fallen from 3.9% in February to 3.8% in March.
When the employment rate initially rose slightly from 3.7% for the third month in a row, economists said it supported the Fed’s insistence on cutting interest rates in June, as widely expected.
Fed officials have kept interest rates at their current 22-year high of 5.25% to 5.5% since their July 2023 policy meeting.
Mortgage rates have also skyrocketed since the pandemic, as banks have become more expensive to borrow capital, and stubbornly high interest rates are making it harder than ever for Americans to buy a home.
According to Freddie Mac, the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is a whopping 6.82% at the time of writing, nearly double what it was four years ago.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has argued that interest rates could start to fall once inflation eases.
“Given the strength of the economy and the evolution of inflation to date, there is time for future data to guide policy decisions,” Powell said in prepared remarks Wednesday at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. .
He added that central bankers are making decisions “meeting by meeting.”
But U.S. inflation rose a sharper-than-expected 3.2% in February, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, which tracks changes in the cost of everyday goods and services.
Moreover, the yearly increase in consumer prices means that the CPI measure has yet to decline on an annual basis since President Joe Biden’s term began in January 2021.
The closest the economy came to turning negative in a year since President Biden took office was in July 2022, with inflation “unchanged” at a very high 8.5%.
On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4% in February, primarily driven by housing and gasoline indexes, which contributed more than 60% of the increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
CPI statistics for March will be released on April 10th.
