For March 2018, Wall Street anticipated that 193,000 jobs would be added, however, only 103,000 jobs were identified as the actual gain. Analysts concur that the focus should remain on the big picture, which is that “the job market is widely regarded to be close to full employment.” Market segment increases point to 33,000 new professional and business services, 22,000 new manufacturing and health care jobs, and 9,000 in mining. In addition to new jobs, hourly earnings have also been increasing to the tune of 0.3%, which is higher than the anticipated 0.2%, though the average amount of hours working has remained the same per week at 34.5 hours.
The national unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, though analysts expected to see the unemployment rate for the month of March decrease to 4%.