The March jobs report is expected to show the U.S. labor market remained relatively stable last month, but experts say the Iran war has already shifted the economic landscape in the weeks since the data that inform Friday\u2019s report was collected.<\/p>\n
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Surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics were completed by March 12. At the time, the full brunt of the war \u2014 for which President Donald Trump has laid out an uncertain timeline \u2014 had yet to hit the job market.<\/p>\n
Three weeks later, gasoline prices have surged to more than $4 a gallon<\/a>, a level that, if it is sustained, would sap U.S. consumers of hundreds of dollars in annual discretionary income. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, the Atlanta Federal Reserve lowered its real-time gross domestic product estimate<\/a> to 1.9%, down from more than 3% just before the start of the war.<\/p>\n Still, Friday\u2019s report will have captured some of the rising uncertainty that has helped sink stock markets<\/a> and spike oil prices over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cEven before the energy shock, consumers were facing headwinds from a soft labor market, weak real income growth, and an already depressed personal saving rate, with the Michigan consumer survey\u2019s major purchases index pointing to a continued slowdown in spending on goods,\u201d economists with Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote in a note to clients this week. \u201cThe surge in gas prices and hit to confidence since the war began will compound those headwinds.\u201d<\/p>\n Broadly, the jobs market remains at a standstill \u2014 what many experts are calling a \u201cno-hire, no fire\u201d environment, in which both layoffs and new placements are subdued. <\/p>\n On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported<\/a> the hiring rate in February fell to just 3.1% of the U.S. workforce, a level last recorded in April 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic bore down. And it’s only slightly above the 2.8% hiring rate recorded during the depths of the 2008-09 Great Recession. <\/p>\n Job openings also fell in February, though they appear to be stabilizing overall. The rate of layoffs also remains at an all-time low<\/a>. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, many Americans\u2019 views of the economy and Trump\u2019s handling of it continue to sink to new depths. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, a CNN poll found <\/a>that just 31% of respondents approve of how Trump is managing U.S. economic performance, with just 27% saying they approve of his handling of inflation, down from 44% a year ago. His overall approval rating appears to have stabilized at about 35%.<\/p>\n A debate is now underway about how many jobs the U.S. would need to add each month to keep the unemployment rate \u2014 currently 4.4%, or roughly 7.6 million people<\/a> \u2014 stable. <\/p>\n Over the past year, a massive reduction in overall immigration to the U.S., coupled with a growing number of baby boomers leaving the workforce, means fewer overall jobs need to be created for the economy to absorb newcomers to the labor force and keep the overall unemployment rate stable, according to economists with the Dallas Federal Reserve. <\/p>\n That overall number of new jobs needed is known as the \u201cbreakeven\u201d employment rate. Whereas in the past it might have required hundreds of thousands of new positions per year to keep the unemployment rate steady and accommodate new entrants, the economists wrote in a note published this week<\/a> that the breakeven employment rate now may be close to zero. <\/p>\n The unemployment rate is calculated by taking the number of workers who are actively looking for jobs and dividing it by the total workforce, both employed and unemployed.<\/p>\n If the overall workforce continues to shrink, fewer new jobs will be needed to incorporate workers entering the labor force, such as recent college graduates or parents who put their careers on hold for a few years. <\/p>\n As long as that dynamic remains in force, the number of net new jobs that need to be added to keep the U.S. economy growing each month will remain lower than it would be if lots of immigrants were arriving in the country or fewer workers were retiring.<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/260402-US-Employment-Report-vsb-2126-aa1a90.jpg\")
A construction worker at a new building in Pasadena, Calif.Mario Tama \/ Getty Images file<\/p>\n