Today, while the markets were closed for the Easter holiday, the employment figures for the month of March were released in the USA.
How did the results come?
increased. This was the lowest performance since January 2021 on a monthly basis.
It rose to 3.6% in February following falling to 3.4% in January, which was the lowest level in almost 54 years. In March, the rate fell to 3.5%. There has been no significant change in the number of unemployed, amounting to 5.8 million.
It increased by 0.3% on a monthly basis. On an annual basis, the rate fell to 4.2%. The annual decrease was clear compared to 5.6% in March 2022, but it is reported that the reduction in working hours was effective in reducing the rate last month.
How were the employment numbers in the first quarter of the year?
Employment figures for January were revised down by 32K and the number of jobs decreased from 504K to 472K. On the other hand, data for February was revised up by 15k to 326k. Thus, there was a drop of 17k in the first two months of the data. The March figure already marked the lowest increase in 26 months.
The labor force participation rate reached its highest level since April 2020 at 62.6%.
The numbers clearly show that there is a slowdown in the US employment sector, which is indeed to be expected given the interest rate hike, but which falls short of diverting the Federal Reserve.
Of course, inflation is the main benchmark for the Federal Reserve, but the amount of damage it will do to the economy in order to reduce inflation is also very important. Expectations of a soft landing were optimistic until the banking crisis, and now there is entrenched inflation in addition to the problems of the banking sector, which poses a serious risk of the economy entering a state of recession.
The drop in energy prices in February had a significant impact on inflation, but inflation for food and services was high. If activity continues in the oil sector, which picked up with the OPEC+ supply cut decision, the rate of decline in inflation might slow. In other words, the Fed will continue to monitor inflation as the main theme.
Today’s employment figures were close to estimates, but also confirmed a slowdown.
As the markets are closed, and although the data is still at a non-influential level, the fact that the decline did not miss expectations at the beginning of the week may provide a slightly positive outlook for the dollar.
