Economists said Friday’s jobs report for March showed a labor market that “keeps trucking along,” as payrolls bounced back from their low levels in February and the U.S. added 196,000 jobs.
Read more about the jobs data from MarketWatch.
• The trucking metaphor comes from Indeed.com’s Martha Gimbel, who also called a slight dip in wages to 3.2% “not too concerning.”
196,000. Reminder that the labor market just keeps trucking along.
— Martha Gimbel (@marthagimbel) April 5, 2019
Slight dip in wages to 3.2% - not too concerning, that number can bounce around.
— Martha Gimbel (@marthagimbel) April 5, 2019
• “Wages barely budged,” commented Sal Guatieri of BMO Capital Markets. “Amid even moderate productivity gains, compensation is exerting almost no upward pressure on inflation.”
• “Average hourly earnings rose a modest 0.1% over the month, and were up 3.2% from one year earlier. This was a slight slowing from 3.4% growth in February, but the tighter job market is forcing businesses to raise pay to retain their current workers and attract new ones.” — Gus Faucher, PNC.
• “The big issue coming into today is whether or not we were going to get a bounceback in payrolls, and we did,” said Thomas Simons of Jefferies LLC. “Overall, we think there is good reason to believe that wage growth will continue to accelerate and we are encouraged by the return to trend in payrolls.”
• Kate Bahn of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth called 196,000 jobs “a fine level for this point in the cycle.”
Payroll employment bounces back in March, from only 20k jobs added in February. 196k jobs is a fine level for this point in the cycle, but still not a big correction from the previous month. https://t.co/8uPDvvu7Tr
— Kate Bahn (@LipstickEcon) April 5, 2019
• “As the U.S. economy continues to approach full employment, hiring gains are set to cool over the rest of the year, but like these numbers, the slowing won’t be dramatic enough to push the Fed into an outright ease. Overall market reaction is likely to be limited with the beat on the payrolls count offset by the softer wages figure.” — Katherine Judge, CIBC Economics.
• Joseph Brusuelas of RSM, meanwhile, found the report “meh.”
Its a meh March employment report. While the topline exceed expectations at 196K and the composition of hiring was mixed. Wage gains slowed on the month to a 3mo avg annualized pace of 3%. Real concerns about productivity due to solid hiring and slowing growth.
— Joseph Brusuelas (@joebrusuelas) April 5, 2019
The March employment data & February revision is not strong enough to dislodge the Fed from its current policy path, which is in line with our model that implies that Fed is likely on hold through 2020.
— Joseph Brusuelas (@joebrusuelas) April 5, 2019
• William Spriggs of the AFL-CIO called unemployment steady — for the wrong reasons.
Labor Force Participation rate drops for all education attainment levels in March in new @BLS_gov report, except for college educated workers. So, unemployment is steady for the wrong reasons. @AFLCIO #JobsReport pic.twitter.com/oIeQAfF1Tv
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) April 5, 2019
