The US added 228,000 jobs in March, far more than the 140,000 estimate and more than the 117,000 added in February (revised lower from the initially reported 151,000). The unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1% reported in February.
Morning Brief Anchors Julie Hyman and Madison Mills report the breaking data in the video above.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.
228,000 jobs added in the month of March. That is better than estimated, 228,000 versus the 140,000 that had been estimated here. The unemployment rate, though, ticking up to 4.2%. That was unexpected here. Uh, the labor force participation rate ticking up as well to 62 and a half percent. Average hourly earnings coming in bang in line with estimates on a month over month basis, 0.3%. On a year over year basis, a little bit lower than estimated at 3.8%. Also, want to point out the 228,000 that we got for the month of March compares with a revised number of 117,000 for the month of February. That is a downward revision for the February number here. Manufacturing payrolls at 1,000. Private payrolls overall at 209,000. So, Maddie, all told here, it does look like on balance a better report than estimated, although that tick up in the unemployment rate is something to keep an eye on.
Certainly something to keep an eye on, but what a wild headline number when it comes to that headline. Like you said, Julie, here, coming in at 228, survey only 140,000. So, a surprise to the upside of over 60,000 additional jobs added here. Also interesting to see that that bigger jobs gain than forecast is coming on the back of a downward revision for February. I do want to take a look at the market action here. We're seeing a little bit of that selling action continuing in the futures market. Actually, seeing a bit of a bigger decline in your S&P 500 and your tech heavy NASDAQ. If we can flip the board over to the treasury market, I want to see what we're seeing in the beginning of the yield curve here. Just taking a look at treasuries on my Yahoo Finance platform here. We are continuing to see yields coming down across the curve, particularly in that 10 year. Now, nearing just 3.8%, and seeing that jobless rate nudging up just a bit, perhaps another confirmation of some slowing to come in the economy, but
Yeah, actually, why don't you take a look at, if we can take the uh Yahoo Finance interactive here, I'm taking a look at two year Treasury Note futures here. So, this real time look at a little bit of a tick down in price, so that would imply a little bit of a tick up in yields on those futures prices here. This coming after, by the way, earlier, we saw the two-year yield drop to the lowest of September 2022. So, a little bit of relief from those levels. The 10-year Treasury futures, similar price action that we are seeing there. But of course, we're going to continue to watch all this as we continue to see uh stock futures as well. Taking a look there, stock futures bouncing a little bit off the lows of the session, but still sharply lower. It doesn't seem like that this report would be enough to change the calculus for, you know, what people were already assuming about the job market, given the overlay now of the tariffs.
And how much weight do you put in this jobs print, given the fact that we don't necessarily have the read through of those tariffs yet? Yesterday morning we were here on set when Stellantis announced their 900 workers getting laid off as early as Monday, and a temporary layoff. Do we see more of that moving forward off the back of these tariffs?
Yeah, and the other question is, how much of the DOJ cuts, DOJ related government cuts are showing up in this jobs report? Most economists were thinking it would feed through more as more time passed.