March Employment Growth Steady
Employers added 215,000 jobs in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday; the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 5.0 percent.
The report noted gains in retail trade, construction and health care employment. Job losses occurred in manufacturing and mining.
BLS revised employment for January from +172,000 to +168,000 and February from +242,000 to +245,000. Over the past three months, job gains have averaged 209,000 per month.
The report said the unemployment rate (5.0 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (8.0 million) have shown little movement since August. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was unchanged at 2.2 million; these individuals accounted for 27.6 percent of the unemployed. The labor force participation rate (63.0 percent) and the employment-population ratio (59.9 percent) changed little; both measures increased by 0.6 percent since September.
John Silvia, chief economist with Wells Fargo Securities, Charlotte, N.C., called the jobs report “solid” but said structural unemployment persists, noting the divergence in jobs growth between the production and services sectors.
“Participation continued its rebound last month, causing the unemployment rate to tick up to 5.0 percent,” Silvia said. “Still, there remains a continuing gap between the demand for labor and supply of available workers.”
Silvia noted over the past three months, job growth in manufacturing and government has been weak while strong in construction, consistent with rising housing starts and modifications. “These results are consistent with continued moderate economic growth and no recession in the outlook for 2016,” he said. “Although cyclical measures indicate the labor market is near full employment, structural labor dislocations are very evident,” Silvia said. “Those employed part-time for economic reasons remains high relative to the number employed part-time during the prior three economic expansions.”
BLS said the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls remained unchanged at 34.4 hours in March. The manufacturing workweek edged down by 0.1 hour to 40.6 hours. Factory overtime was 3.3 hours for the fourth month in a row. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls held steady at 33.6 hours.
Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 7 cents to $25.43, following a 2-cent decline in February. Over the year, average hourly earnings rose by 2.3 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 4 cents to $21.37.
