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Jobs, jobs, jobs!

Employers added 303,000 jobs in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported on Friday, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent, from 3.9 percent in February. Expectations of a recession among experts, once widespread, are now increasingly rare.
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The private sector added 232,000 jobs overall. Construction added 39,000 jobs in March, about twice its average monthly gain in the past year. Employment in hospitality and leisure, which plunged during the pandemic, continues to bounce back and is now above its February 2020 levels.
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Employment growth in sectors like professional and business services, finance and information remains soft. Daniel Zhao, the lead economist at the career site Glassdoor, pointed out that these three sectors collectively added just 10,000 jobs in March — a fresh indication of how white-collar employers have grown much more picky since their hiring spree during the pandemic.

“Companies are hiring selectively, prioritizing quality over quantity,” said Tom Gimbel, the chief executive of the LaSalle Network, a Chicago-based staffing and recruiting firm.
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In an interview with Bloomberg in March, Liz Everett Krisberg, the head of the Bank of America Institute, noted a crucial overarching reality for households: The monthly median value of savings and checking balances is more than 40 percent higher than in 2019 for all income levels tracked by the bank.

Delinquencies are on the rise for subprime borrowers of cars and credit cards. But the overall percentage of household disposable income going to debt payments is still below its prepandemic low.

In the Frozen North, not so much:

Canada’s unemployment rate jumped to 6.1 per cent in March as more people looked for work, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

The figure is up from 5.8 per cent in February and marks the largest increase in the unemployment rate since summer 2022.

The federal agency’s labour force survey shows employment was little changed last month, with the economy shedding 2,200 jobs, after modest increases over the last several months.
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Youth are particularly feeling the chill in the labour market. Employment among those aged 15 to 24 declined by 28,000 in March and the jobless rate for the group rose to 12.6 per cent, the highest it’s been since September 2016 outside of 2020 and 2021.

Friday’s report shows job losses last month were concentrated in accommodation and food services, followed by wholesale and retail trade and professional, scientific and technical services.

Meanwhile, employment increased in four industries, led by health care and social assistance.
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Despite weaker labour market conditions, wage growth continued to grow rapidly, with average hourly wages rising 5.1 per cent annually.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 5th, 2024 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.