U.S. Added 303K Jobs in March, Outpacing Expectations for 200K

The U.S. jobs market continues to exhibit strength with the government reporting the addition of 303,000 jobs last month. That’s the strongest headline number since May 2023 and easily topped economist forecasts for 200,000 and February’s 270,000 additions (revised from a previously reported 275,000).

The unemployment rate in March dipped to 3.8% against expectations for 3.9% and February’s 3.9%.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) fell about 0.5% in the minutes following Friday morning’s report to $66,000. In traditional markets, U.S. stock index futures gave up a chunk of earlier gains, but are still modestly higher. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose 6.5 basis points to 4.38% and the dollar index added 0.5%.

Coming into 2024, markets had priced in as many as five or six U.S. Federal Reserve rate cuts to begin as soon as March. The economic data, however, hasn’t cooperated. Inflation has actually risen somewhat in the first quarter of the year and job growth has remained robust.

March has obviously come and gone with no rate cut and traders ahead of today’s numbers had moved expectations of the first rate cut to June or July, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. A total of just three rate cuts are expected for the full year and even that could be too much.

Speaking yesterday, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari suggested the possibility of no rate cuts at all in 2024. His remarks prompted a sharp reversal in stocks, with the major averages closing down more than 1%. Just following today’s numbers, swaps trading indicated expectations for the first rate cut had moved out to September.

Checking other report details, the labor force participation rate rose to 62.7% from 62.5%, suggesting sizable numbers of people returning to the workforce. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in March, in line with expectations and up from 0.2% in February. On a year-over-year basis, average hourly earnings rose an in line 4.1%, down from 4.3% in February.