‍Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from March 2025 that was published in April 2025. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

‍

US employers added 228 thousand jobs last month, far outpacing economic forecasts that predicted about 140 thousand new jobs. 

‍

At the same time, the national unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% - an increase of  0.1% - which is a minor lift, although 4.2% matches the highest the US unemployment rate has been since October 2021 when the US was still recovering from the pandemic-induced unemployment spike. 

‍

Since November 2021, this report represents only the third time that US unemployment has hit 4.2%, the first of which was July 2024 followed by November 2024.

‍

The labor force participation rate rose by one-tenth of a point from 62.4% to 62.5%, while the employment population ratio held steady at 59.9%, which is the third time this figure has been below 60% since November 2022.

‍

After an 11% spike last month in the number of people employed part-time for economic reasons, that figure has come down significantly from about 4.94 million to 4.78 million, representing a reduction of about 160 thousand people - although this subset of the population has seen substantial growth over the last 12 months, increasing by about 11% in total.

‍

The 228 thousand jobs added last month amount to an increase of almost 45% over the 155 thousand jobs added in the US on average in each of the last 12 months, further underscoring the resilience of the labor market even as it has cooled over the past year.

‍

The healthcare industry added the largest number of new payroll entries last month with about 54 thousand jobs - just over the 52 thousand monthly average healthcare job additions over the last year.

‍

The social assistance industry also had a strong month, adding 24 thousand jobs for an increase of more than 26% over the 19% monthly average recorded over the previous 12 months. 

‍

Further, retailers added 24 thousand jobs last month, in part due to more than 20 thousand food and beverage workers returning to the job post labor strike, and the warehousing and transportation industry added a comparable 23 thousand jobs as well, which is almost a 92% increase.

‍

The only industry to see a workforce reduction over the last month is the government, which fell by about 4 thousand workers, driven by a decrease of 11 thousand federal workers - although the loss of federal workers substantially undercounts the number of recent terminations conducted by the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk that have not yet been captured by these surveys.

‍

Average hourly pay rose by about 9 cents to an even $36 per hour (an increase of 0.3%) over the month while the increase was about 3.8% over the last year - up from $34.67 per hour for privately employed, non-farm workers. 

‍

The length of the average workweek saw no significant movement over the month at 34.2 hours per week. 

‍

Mployer’s Take

This report represents only the second set of complete monthly data collected under the second Trump administration.

‍

With most incoming administrations, the first 100 days often moves at a frenetic pace as the new office-holder implements a number of policy changes that depart from those of their predecessor, and Trump’s latest stretch occupying the White House has been no different in that regard.

‍

While many of the early actions undertaken since Trump was re-sworn in were focused on deregulation, deportation, and decreasing the size of the federal workforce, with just a few weeks left in the first 100 days of his second term, Trump focused his attention on tariffs and used executive orders and emergency powers in order to impose import taxes on goods arriving from nearly every international trading partner the US has. 

‍

As we noted in the wake of last month’s employment situation report, many of the impacts of Trump’s early actions have yet to become overtly apparent in the labor market or economy at large as experienced by most Americans.

‍

Those delayed effects are especially true for Federal layoffs which may exceed a quarter million workers based on some estimates, very few of which have shown up in the labor market data yet due to how these figures are counted and when.

‍

Also, the Trump administration has been rehiring some inadvertently terminated personnel who work in sensitive areas like nuclear safety and infectious disease prevention, so the total number of federal employees who have lost their jobs in the last couple of months may still decrease.

‍

That said, there are tens if not hundred of thousands of federal workers who are already or will soon be out of a job, and those results will certainly have an impact on the labor market, potentially increasing the number of unemployed people in the US by more than 3%, and that doesn’t account for all the complementary support jobs in the private sector that will be eliminated due to the smaller federal workforce.

‍

It remains to be seen, of course, just how many jobs will be lost due to these cuts or what the broader economic and other impacts may be, and that will likely continue to be true for many months if not years to come.

‍

All that to say, the delay and uncertainty surrounding the early actions of the second Trump administration will take some time to play out before the final outcomes can be known, and that is largely true for the latest tariff actions, as well - but the scale of the potential tariff-related repercussions may be much bigger, although, to be clear, those impacts are very much still in flux and subject to change as countries come to the negotiating table, reevaluate existing trade partnerships, and/or forge new ones.

‍

After what Goldman Sachs described as the largest equity selloff in 15 years in just the first days since Trump announced and implemented this latest round of sweeping, global tariffs, the short-term economic impacts are likely to be considerably more pronounced than the short-term economic impacts caused by shrinking the federal workforce or disrupting the agricultural supply chain have been.

‍

While the long-term impacts of these actions - especially the tariffs - will likely remain a subject of debate for years, there is much more agreement about the probable short-term impacts, which both supporters and opponents of the Trump administration believe will result in additional stress and strain on the US economy, leading to economic pain - the main questions are how severe it will be and for how long.

‍

Check out the Mployer blog here.

‍