10/04/2023
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that were 236,000 jobs created in March, which was in line with estimates of 240,000. There were 17,000 in negative revisions to January and February, which does temper the gains bit a bit. 72,000 of the gains was from Leisure and Hospitality, which has been a huge driver of job gains. But we have gain backed 98% of the jobs that were lost due to the pandemic…so there is likely not a lot of job gains left in this sector. Remember, the latest JOLTs report showed a sizable drop in job openings in this area the last two months. Remember, there are two surveys within the Jobs report, the Business Survey and the Household Survey. The Business Survey is where the headline job creation number comes from and includes a lot of modelling and estimations. The Household Survey is where the unemployment rate comes from and is derived from calling households to see if they are employed. The Household Survey has its own job creation component, and it showed that there were 577,000 job creations, while the labor force increased by 480,000. This caused the unemployment rate to fall from 3.6% to 3.5%. Average hourly earnings were up 0.3% in March, which was in line with estimates. From last year, average hourly earnings are up 4.2%, which is a decline from 4.6% and the lowest post covid yearly increase we have seen. Average weekly hours worked declined by 0.1 to 34.4 hours, which is the lowest amount of hours worked since 2019 when not including Covid. That means that on average, out of the 161M workers in the US, their hours were reduced by 0.1 hours. So instead of reducing headcount, it appears companies cut worker hours…but if you calculate how many jobs this would be equivalent to, it would be like losing 468,000 jobs. Average hourly earnings were flat month over month, but are now up only 3.3% year over year…a big drop from 4% in the previous report and 4.4% in the one before that. This is the lowest increase in almost 2 years.
