The U.S. is Making a Come Back: Jobs Added and Unemployment Down

The labor market and related economic growth again surprised the vast majority of economists; save a few. Industry, construction, healthcare, government, and leisure & hospitality saw bigger growth trends. Wages went up 4.1% over a year and unemployment went down 3.8%. I wouldn't expect interest rate cuts anytime soon without a change in the market. It would be risky to artificially impact the economy without understanding some of the trending factors. Move too soon and you overheat and move too late and things stall out. The U.S. is making a comeback!

Lower unemployment is putting upward pressure on wages. What I would like to see is that people train on new skills and go to school to move up to higher value employment positions to increase their value in the global supply chain. We may also want to see AI and robotics improve manufacturing by tapping into new infrastructure in a way that enhances U.S. worker productivity (and global value). Likewise, small and medium businesses should be encouraged to create future innovation beyond 5 years. 

(Time will tell.... I didn't go to an ivy league school and had to work and raise kids like the vast majority of blue collar and Middle Class Americans that didn't come with trust funds. I'm an advocate for easy access education to create equity, to develop the American worker and the economy. An educated, skilled and informed workforce is more important than retaining such benefits for a smaller and wealthier demographic. I'm working on a transactional cluster theory for rapid industy innovation. I have the main principles down but want to write it into a book shorter than the disjointed 300 pages+ I have now.🫤 )

March 2024 BEA Employment/Unemployment (April 5th, 2024)

"Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 303,000 in March, and the unemployment rate changed little at 3.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, government, and construction" (BEA, April 5th, 2024, para 1.).

You can see some of the demographic adjustments. 

"Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for Blacks (6.4 percent) increased in March, while the rates for Asians (2.5 percent) and Hispanics (4.5 percent) decreased. The jobless rates for adult men (3.3 percent), adult women (3.6 percent), teenagers (12.6 percent), and Whites (3.4 percent) showed little or no change over the month" (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)" (BEA, April 5th, 2024, para 4).