The US economy added more jobs than expected in March while the unemployment rate ticked lower, underscoring signs the labor marketreleased Friday showed the labor market added 303,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in March, significantly more than the 214,000 expected by economists. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate decreased to 3.8% from 3.9% in February.
“The strong and broad-based pace of job creation in March topped all estimates and underscores the Fed will be in no hurry to start cutting interest rates,” Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic wrote in a note to clients. “However, as Chairman Powell has indicated, the robust increase in employment will not preclude an easing of monetary policy since in part it reflects an increase in labor supply.
"The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey report is consistent with a labor market that is still quite healthy," Oxford Economics lead US economist Nancy Vanden Houten wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.