The U.S. jobs market shrugged off the effects of federal government layoffs and the impact of new tariff policy and posted a better-than-expected gain last month.
The Labor Department announced Friday the U.S. economy added 228,000 jobs in March. Published reports said economists had expected some 140,000 to be added.
The unemployment rate rose slightly, from 4.1 percent to 4.2 percent, according to figures released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Statistics did show, however, that gains for January and February had been revised down substantially.
“You cannot find any evidence of a nascent recession in these figures,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist of High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note to clients, according to a report by USA Today.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised down payroll additions for January and February by a total 48,000. Just 111,000 jobs were added in January and 117,000 in February.
Industries with the most new jobs included:
- Health care with 54,000.
- Leisure and hospitality added 43,000.
- Retail, 24,000, largely because of the return of striking supermarket workers.
- Transportation and warehousing, 23,000.
But professional and business services, a sprawling sector that includes lawyers, architects and other white-collar workers, added just 3,000 jobs.
