5 Things to Watch in the March Jobs Report The unemployment rate could reach a new low, but the pace of hiring is expected to coolBy Eric Morath
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2018/04/05/5-things-to-watch-in-the-march-jobs-report-4/
The Labor Department releases its broadest look at the U.S. job market for March on Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect employers added 178,000 jobs during the month and see the unemployment rate ticking down to 4.0%. Here are five things to watch in the report.
1. A fresh low
Economists project the jobless rate will fall to 4% for the first time since 2000. (They expected it to happen in February, too, but the rate held at 4.1% for the fifth straight month.) An unemployment rate of 4% or less is extremely rare in the past 70 years of modern record-keeping. It has only occurred in the immediate aftermath of World War II, again when young men were being drafted into wars in Korea and Vietnam, and briefly at the end of the 1990s tech boom. The question, if the rate falls, is can a pattern be maintained for several years? Or is it a sign the economy is starting to overheat?
2. Still-hot hiring?
Employers added 313,000 workers to payrolls in February, the best month for hiring since July 2016. Despite a low unemployment rate suggesting a shortage of available workers, employers are hiring at a faster rate–adding more than 200,000 workers in four of the prior five months. Watch to see if employers can maintain that pace, even as economists project hiring to slow.
3. Put me in, boss
Businesses have been able to add workers without pushing down the unemployment rate further in recent months by enticing people who are out of the labor force to work. Those can include students, stay-at-home parents, those with disabilities and those previously too frustrated by their prospects to look for jobs. Watch to see if the labor-force participation rate can top 63% for the first time since 2014.
4. Wage question
Bringing workers off the sidelines could be helping hold wages in check, despite what appears to be a tight labor market. The year-over-year gain in average hourly earnings has not topped 3% since the recession ended in 2009. There has been some recent, modest upward pressure on wages. Look to see if that momentum is maintained, or if it fizzles, as has happened at several previous points in the current expansion.
5. We don’t need no education
The unemployment rate for those with less than a high-school diploma has been falling at a fairly sharp rate since the middle of 2016. Meanwhile, the jobless rate for those with a college degree has plateaued, and even edged up slightly this year. It’s a sign hiring is drawing in those most difficult to employ, while the labor market for highly skilled workers is less tight now than in the late 1990s.
Comments are closed.
