Jobs up 431,000 and unemployment rate down to 3.6%. January and February revised up an additional 95,000. Wages up 5.6% year on year, but not quite keeping pace with inflation which is the main problem. But now a lot of the employment/unemployment numbers are “little changed” from February 2020. So that’s good news. They do a breakdown of those in the report, but ones that they list as almost unchanged from February 2020 are:
Unemployment rate
Unemployed persons
Permanent job losers
Temporary layoffs
Number of employees employed part time for economic reasons
The vast majority of people who want a job can get one, which is great. People are also happier at work and have more optionality because of remote work opportunities.
I am really concerned about housing, though. The midsized cities that used to provide good affordable housing options are quickly becoming less affordable.
Long-term, reduced zoning restrictions can be helpful, but that’s a long-term strategy whereas
the average 30 year old earning a decent living will have a tough time buying a first house
and
the average 40 year old is having a tough time buying a bigger house for a growing family because inventory is so low
Government employment is included in this report. This is the official BLS report You’re probably thinking of the ADP report that normally comes out before the official BLS report that only lists private sector employment. But due to Friday being April 1st I don’t think ADP did theirs yet. This is the real report.
I’m sure someone is keeping the data. Except for calls for ‘smaller government’ I never heard of using government employment as particularly good news or bad. Certainly not tracked as an indicator of the state of the economy.
the question now is how long before rising inflation and rising interest rates cause a real dollar drop in gdp and the ue rate starts to tick back upward.