The US economy added 236,000 jobs in March, raising expectations of an interest rate increase
The steady increase in the number of jobs in the United States continued in March, which led to a decrease in the unemployment rate to 3.5%, which may prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again next month.
The Labor Department said in its widely watched employment report on Friday that non-farm payrolls increased by 236,000 jobs last month.
February data was revised to show the addition of 326,000 jobs instead of 311,000 as previously reported.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected an increase of 239,000 jobs. Estimates ranged between 150,000 and 342,000 jobs.
The economy needs to create about 100,000 jobs per month to keep pace with the increase in the working-age population.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 from 3.6% in February. While the average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in March, after increasing 0.2% in the previous month.
The dollar rose today, Friday, after it showed after the announcement of this data, which revealed an increase in jobs in the largest economy in the world last month, indicating the possibility that the Federal Reserve (the US central bank) will be forced to raise interest rates again next month.
The dollar index rose 0.3%, to 102.16, after the release of US non-farm payrolls data.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank cut global economic growth forecasts
The dollar rose against the yen by 0.4%, to 132.21 yen, while the euro fell 0.2%, to 1.0894 dollars.
Today, Friday, markets were awaiting the release of non-farm payrolls data released by the US Department of Labor for the month of March.
Expectations were that there would be an increase of 239 thousand jobs, to be the smallest increase in jobs since December 2020.
The economy added 311 thousand jobs in February.
Expectations were for the report to show the unemployment rate unchanged at 3.6%, along with a slight gain in wages.
It should be noted that the ADP Research Institute report showed that US companies added fewer jobs in March than expected, while wage growth slowed.
The report revealed that employment in the non-agricultural private sector rose by 145,000 jobs last month, after a revised increase of 261,000 in February.
In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV, Ahmed Negm, head of research at XS.com, said that the markets are not pricing the rate hike significantly.
He added that the decline in inflation was not at the pace that the Fed expected, pointing out that the wage rate entrenched the idea of inflation.
