The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its March 2024 Report, so let’s take a look at how employment fared over the last month.
The great news is:
- In March, total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 303,000 people.
- Health care, construction, and government garnered the largest share of new jobs in March.
- In March, average hourly earnings for private non-farm payroll jobs increased by 0.3%, or 12 cents, to $34.69. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 4.1%.
- The average work week for private non-farm payroll employees increased by 0.1 hours to 34.4 hours in March.
- The number of discouraged workers who believed there were no jobs available to them decreased to 337,000 people.
The good news is:
- The number of long-term unemployed, people who were without a job for 27 weeks or more, decreased slightly to 1.2 million people, accounting for 19.5% of total unemployed persons.
- There was little change to the labor force participation rate, at 62.7%, which has shown little change over the past year.
The bad news is:
- In March, the unemployment rate increased slightly at 3.8%, or 6.4 million people.
- The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job decreased to 5.4 million people. Keep in mind, these 5.4 million people were not counted as unemployed because they were unavailable to take a job or were not actively looking for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.