April 2023 Jobs Report: A Look at March’s Trends

Executive Summary

By Nicholas Ault, Aston Carter Market Research Analyst

Last month’s jobs report showed impressive job growth, a trend which can also be seen in March’s labor report with the addition of 236,000 jobs, 189,000 of which were in the private sector — slightly lower than the monthly average. For the sixth month in a row, labor force participation has been on the rise. That said, there are still 4.9M people not in the labor force who currently want a job. Despite the labor force participation rate increasing as demand continues to outpace the supply of available workers, the unemployment rate decreased to 3.5%. Job openings slowed, however, falling below the 10M mark for the first time since May 2021, still 42% above pre-pandemic levels.