The U.S. added 228,000 jobs in March, beating economists’ expectations of 140,000 jobs. In contrast, February saw 117,000 jobs being added.
The sectors that saw growth in employment during the last month are health care, social assistance, transportation and warehousing, and retail trade.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics shared the details in the March employment data on Apr. 4.
Unemployment rose from 4.1% in February to 4.2% in March.
The number of unemployed people stood at 7.1 million in the month. The long-term unemployed — those jobless for 27 weeks or more — accounted for 21.3% of all unemployed people.
The federal government sector saw 4,000 jobs being lost in March. Though the figure is lower than the loss of 11,000 jobs in February, it doesn’t bode well for those working in the federal government.
After assuming the office of the U.S. President for the second time, Donald Trump formed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in January to cut federal spending. Billionaire Elon Musk, senior advisor to the president, is the de facto head of the newly formed department that has slashed thousands of federal government jobs so far.
Trump, who announced “reciprocal tariffs” on Apr. 2 dubbed the “Liberation Day,” expressed joy at the “great job numbers” on Truth Social following the release of job numbers.
Bitcoin remained rather unfazed at the announcement and was trading at $82,035.87 at press time as per Kraken’s price feeds. Dogecoin, the meme coin that shares its ticker with the acronym of Musk’s department, was trading at $0.1672 at press time.
Neither the stock nor crypto markets could escape the losses on Apr. 3 after Trump’s tariff announcement. However, the crypto market showed modest recovery on Apr. 4, unlike the stock market which continued to be in the red zone.
