“The Labor Department released its monthly hiring and unemployment figures for March on Friday morning, providing an important snapshot of the American economy,” the New York Times reported on Friday.
February job creation was initially reported at just 20,000 new jobs, but that number was revised to total more than 33,000 new jobs.
A CNBC report on the new job numbers includes a chart depicting the industries where the most jobs were created last month, illustrating how “[j]ob gains in the education and health services sector easily surpassed those in all other industries in March,” followed by jobs that fall under professional or business services, leisure and hospitality, and construction.
The Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also reports that unemployment is sitting steady at a mere 3.8%.
Even the New York Times‘ takeaway on the American economy as a whole is largely positive: “The United States economy is still enjoying one of its longest expansions on record. It has produced nearly 21 million jobs since the labor market bottomed out in 2010, and the unemployment rate has plunged from a peak of 10 percent in October 2009.”
Furthermore, wage growth continues to tick up, and the stock market front also boasts hopeful news: “Stocks climbed in early trading, with the S&P 500 up roughly 0.4 percent shortly before 10:30 a.m. The benchmark stock market index is less than 1.5 percent away from hitting a new high for the first time this year.”
