The increase of 184,000 jobs in March was well above forecasts and wage gains were strong.
In March, employers added 184,000 workers, significantly more than anticipated, providing further evidence that the U.S. economy is outpacing that of 2024.
ADP, a private payroll company, revealed its monthly employer survey on Wednesday. It revealed that wages increased at an annual rate of 5.1%, surpassing inflation and potentially stimulating consumer spending.
The gain of 150,000 was anticipated by economists, who had revised their February estimate of 140,000 to 155,000. Powered by a gain of 63,000 in the leisure and hospitality sector, the 184,000 increase was the biggest since July.
Gains were reported by small, mid-sized, and large businesses, indicating that the increase was widespread. Of the 184,000 new jobs created, 142,000 were in the services sector.
The sectors that reported pay increases in March were also unexpected, according to ADP Chief Economist, Nela Richardson. Building, finance, and manufacturing saw the three largest increases in the number of people changing jobs. Although inflation has decreased, our data indicates that wages for both goods and services are rising.
The ADP report comes after the Labor Department on Tuesday released job opening data for the end of February, which indicated that the labor market is still robust and that the number of job positions, at 8.8 million, remained mostly unchanged from the previous month. The proportion of workers quitting their jobs did not change.
According to some analysts, the labor market is actually strengthening after slowing down a little over the past year.
According to Julia Pollak, Chief Economist at ZipRecruiter, the number of job postings on the internet has increased. She claims that the improvement is consistent with other economic data for 2024 that has shown unexpected strength.
