The U.S. economy added 228,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate stayed roughly even at 4.2 percent, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department.
The monthly federal jobs report showed the labor market holding strong in March after another month of rising concern about the impact of President Trump’s economic agenda and major cut to the federal workforce.
March employment data came in well above economists’ expectations of 135,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, according to consensus estimates.
The report also showed a decline in government employment of just 40,000 jobs, far fewer than the more than 216,000 federal job cuts tracked by Challenger, Christmas and Gray in March.
The March report comes at the end of a tumultuous week for the U.S. economy and financial markets, which have plunged in the wake of Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.
The stock market suffered Thursday its worst day of losses since 2020 after Trump imposed Wednesday a 10 percent universal tariff and effective import tax rates of up to 54 percent on other nations.
Trump’s new tariffs followed his prior imposition of import taxes on Canadian and Mexican goods, foreign metal and imported autos and auto parts.
The president is on track to raise import taxes by roughly $600 billion, according to analyst estimates, even as the economy already showed signs of slowing earlier this year.
Developing
