March Jobs Report

For March, the U.S. economy created 916,000 net new jobs. Wall Street had been expecting a gain of 675,000.

The private sector added 780,000 while the government added 136,000. The unemployment rate fell to 6.0%.

A more encompassing measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons dropped to 10.7% from 11.1% in February.

The labor force continued to grow after losing more than 6 million Americans at one point last year. Another 347,000 workers came back, bringing the labor force participation rate to 61.5%, compared to 63.3% in February 2020.

There are still nearly 5 million fewer Americans employed than a year ago while the labor force is down 2.2 million.

Leisure and hospitality, a sector critical to restoring the jobs market to its former strength, showed the strongest gains for the month with 280,000 new jobs. Bars and restaurants added 176,000 while arts, entertainment and recreation contributed 64,000 to the total.

Posted by on April 2nd, 2021 at 8:32 am


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