When labor force growth was at 1% to 2%, zero job growth in any month set off alarm bells for Daly and other Fed officials, signaling a potential recession.<\/p>\n
\u201cConveying that a zero-job growth economy is consistent with full employment is not easy,\u201d Daly wrote. \u201cBut with labor force growth near zero, a \u2018zero\u2019 or even a negative month of net job gains could be consistent with expectations and not necessarily a sign of weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"SAN](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/76d59b30-4c4b-11ea-af77-aaaa63cf6018.jpeg\")
Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, poses for a photograph. (Nick Otto for the Washington Post) \u00b7 The Washington Post via Getty Images <\/p>\n
Simply stated, slower labor force growth translates into lower benchmark job gains.<\/p>\n
The latest snapshot of the job market released Friday showed 178,000 jobs were created in March<\/a>, ricocheting back from the newly revised 133,000 jobs lost in February and closer to the blockbuster 160,000 jobs created in January.<\/p>\n A new paper out from the Federal Reserve by Seth Murray and Ivan Vidangos says the so-called \u201cbreakeven pace\u201d of job growth this year could be significantly lower than even the historic low reached during the pandemic. The authors noted the rapid slowing of net immigration may translate into such a large drop in labor force growth that the breakeven pace could fall to nearly zero, requiring less than 10,000 new jobs per month this year to maintain low unemployment.<\/p>\n Fed governor Chris Waller also recently noted that there could be zero job growth and the labor market could still be considered in balance with the unemployment rate holding steady because of changes in immigration that are leading to expectations of zero growth in the labor force this year.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, Daly maintains that job growth alone is unlikely to be a good measure to assess the health of the job market. She\u2019s relying more on measures such as the employment-to-population ratio, the unemployment rate, the quits rate, and the hiring rate, which she says account for changes in the size of the workforce and can provide a better picture of labor market health.<\/p>\n Hiring has skidded to 3.1%, the worst pace since the early days of the pandemic and before that since 2011, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday .<\/p>\n US hires plunged to 4.8 million last month, down by 387,000 from a year ago, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n Daly also expects fewer job gains to spell slower economic growth. While productivity gains could help offset some of that, those gains would have to be persistent.<\/p>\n Jennifer Schonberger is a veteran financial journalist covering markets, the economy, and investing. At Yahoo Finance she covers the Federal Reserve, Congress, the White House, the Treasury, the SEC, the economy, cryptocurrencies, and the intersection of Washington policy with finance. Follow her on X @Jenniferisms<\/a> and on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Click here for the latest economic news and indicators to help inform your investing decisions<\/a><\/p>\n Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/p>\n