The world’s largest economy gained 178,000 jobs in March, after losing 133,000 in February, and the unemployment rate dropped by 0.1 percentage-point to 4.3 percent, the Labour Department said.
Friday’s data significantly beat analyst expectations, with economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal expecting an increase of 59,000 jobs.
Much of the recovery was fuelled by jobs in the health care sector, which has remained resilient even as labour demand has dropped across many sectors of the US economy.
Health care added 76,000 jobs in March, after having lost jobs the month before, in part due to strike actions.
Employment in construction also grew by 26,000 in March, although the Labour Department flagged that it had changed little over its level from a year ago.
Federal government employment continued to decline.
Trump has taken a hatchet to the sector in a drive aimed at cost-cutting and reducing the size of government. Employment in the sector was down 11.8 percent since October 2024, the data showed.
The new data reflected a revision in the figures for January and February, showing employment for those two months combined was 7,000 lower than previously reported.
Ahead of the data, analysts had expected a more modest increase in jobs.
“We expect solid growth in headline non-farm payrolls in March, but don’t expect the report to ease concerns among Federal Reserve officials that the labour market has become more vulnerable due to the US-Israel war with Iran,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics.
The war in the Middle East has sent oil prices surging and snarled supply chains, leading to fears of economic slowdown around the world, including in the United States.
Uncertainty about the duration and intensity of the shock has so far led policymakers at the US Federal Reserve to adopt a wait-and-see approach on interest rate moves.
Unemployment rates have remained relatively steady in the United States – but the figure has hidden churn under the surface, analysts warn, as weak jobs growth has been matched by a drop in labour supply.
That drop in supply is largely attributed to Trump’s crackdown on immigration and widespread deportation efforts.
Trump will take heart from Friday’s jobs figures, as he has claimed to have turned the US economy around, despite enacting tariff and other policies that have upended global trade relationships and led to greater uncertainty for businesses. (AFP)
Edited by Robert Kemp
