By Lucia Mutikani<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) – U.S. job growth rebounded more than expected in March as a strike by healthcare workers ended and temperatures warmed up, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, but downside risks to \u200cthe labor market are mounting from a war with Iran that has no clear end in sight.<\/p>\n
Nonfarm payrolls increased \u200cby 178,000 jobs last month after a downwardly revised 133,000 drop in February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its closely watched employment report \u200bon Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising by 60,000 jobs after a previously reported 92,000 decrease in February.<\/p>\n
Estimates ranged from a loss of 25,000 positions to a gain of 125,000 jobs. The unemployment rate was at 4.4% in February.<\/p>\n
The labor market has been buffeted by uncertainty, starting with President Donald Trump’s aggressive import tariffs. Just as some of the clouds were starting to clear, the U.S. Supreme Court \u200cin February struck down the duties, which \u2060Trump had pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies.<\/p>\n
Trump, however, responded by imposing a global tariff for up to 150 days. Data from the BLS this week showed job openings decreased by \u2060the most in nearly 1-1\/2 years in February, pointing to slipping labor demand.<\/p>\n
At the end of February, the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran, sending global oil prices soaring more than 50%, and boosting domestic gasoline prices. Economists said the war, now in its second month, was \u200banother \u200blayer of uncertainty for businesses, and they expected a hit on the \u200blabor market in the just-started second quarter.<\/p>\n
Mass deportations by \u200cthe Trump administration have also contributed to labor market paralysis, economists said, by reducing supply, which ultimately hurts demand for goods and services, and workers.<\/p>\n
Historically low labor supply growth means less than 50,000 jobs per month were needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population, economists estimated. Some estimates have put the break-even rate at zero or even negative.<\/p>\n
Economists at JPMorgan cautioned that “negative payroll readings in any given month will become more common,” adding that “even with job growth sufficient to stabilize the unemployment rate, there could be \u200cnegative payroll readings at least a third of the time.”<\/p>\n
While March was \u200bprobably too early to capture the fallout from the Middle East conflict, some \u200beconomists said that could become evident as soon as April’s \u200bemployment report. The national average retail gasoline price this week topped $4 a gallon for the first time \u200cin more than three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) – U.S. job growth rebounded more than expected in March as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,89431,77527,192424,29022,29339,862,2442],"class_list":{"0":"post-580275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-employment-report","13":"tag-healthcare-workers","14":"tag-labor-department39s-bureau-of-labor-statistics","15":"tag-labor-market","16":"tag-nonfarm-payrolls","17":"tag-president-donald-trump","18":"tag-unemployment-rate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}