March nonfarm payrolls were just released. +162,000 jobs were added in March. Subtracting 48,000 Census jobs, the economy still added 114,000 jobs! January was revised up +14,000, and February up to -14,000. Had there not been blizzards on the east coast, February may well have been positive as well.
The separate Census Bureau household survey showed +264,000 job growth. Unemployment remained the same at 9.7%. What is particularly positive is that it did so even though +398,000 people were added to the labor force, and the labor participation rate increased to 64.9%.
There was further good news in the establishment report in that the workweek increased to 34.0 hours from 33.8. Temporary hiring also increased +40,000. A total of +313,000 temporary jobs have been added to the economy in the last 5 months.
Unemployed persons in all durations between 1 and 26 weeks declined. That is more good news, because it means fewer unemployed "in the pipeline." The only negative here is that long term unemployed over 26 weeks continued to increase, by +414,000 in March.
The only other negative in the report was hourly earnings, which declined ( - 0.1%).
This is unabashed good news. Jobs have finally turned the corner.
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