The American labor market roared back to life in March, adding a robust 178,000 jobs and easily clearing the low expectations set by economists. According to Labor Department data released Friday, the hiring blitz followed a rocky February and brought the national unemployment rate down to 4.3%, slightly better than the 4.4% many analysts had anticipated.
The performance was a significant surprise for Wall Street, where experts polled by LSEG had expected a much more modest gain of only 60,000 jobs.
While the March numbers were strong, the government also smoothed out the data from earlier in the year. January’s hiring was revised upward to 160,000, while February’s previously reported loss was deepened, moving from a 92,000-job drop to a loss of 133,000.
When both months are combined, the revisions show that the economy actually had 7,000 fewer jobs than first thought before the March rebound.
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Private employers did the heavy lifting last month, adding 186,000 positions. Meanwhile, the government sector shrank by 8,000 jobs, as losses in federal and state offices outweighed a 14,000-job increase at the local level. Healthcare led the charge in hiring, adding 76,000 positions.
A large chunk of that growth—roughly 35,000 jobs—came from physicians’ office workers returning to their posts following a strike. Hospitals also contributed to the sector’s growth by adding 15,000 staff members.
Other corners of the economy showed resilience as well. The manufacturing sector defied predictions of a decline by adding 15,000 jobs, and construction firms hired 26,000 more workers. Transportation and warehousing saw a boost of 21,000 jobs, driven largely by a surge in couriers and messengers.
Social assistance also grew by 14,000, mostly in individual and family services. On the flip side, the financial services sector continued to struggle, losing 15,000 jobs in March, bringing its total decline to 77,000 since its peak last May.
Despite the hiring spree, some parts of the workforce are still facing headwinds. The number of long-term unemployed workers—those out of a job for 27 weeks or more—stayed steady at 1.8 million, but that figure is up by 322,000 compared to the same time last year.
Additionally, 4.5 million Americans are currently working part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work or because their employers cut their hours, a figure that remained unchanged this month. These long-term unemployed now account for 25.4% of all people currently without a job in the United States.
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