Economic Update - 04/04/2025

Payrolls

• The top four industries for jobs growth accounted for 73.4% of total jobs growth.

• The bottom two industries for wages (Leisure & Hospitality and Retail Trade) accounted for almost one-third of total jobs growth (29.3%)

• Healthcare experienced the strongest jobs growth (77,800) and accounted for 34.1% of total jobs growth on its own.

• Four industries lost jobs

  • Information = -2,000

  • Wholesale Trade = -2,000

  • Mining & Logging = -2,000

  • Private Education = -1,000

• Two of the highest paying industries (Information and Mining & Logging) lost jobs.

Wages

• Average weekly earnings rose 3.2% year-over-year.

• Five industries experienced year-over-year wage growth over 4%

  • Leisure & Hospitality = 4.2%

  • Financial Activities = 4.3%

  • Professional & Business Services = 4.5%

  • Manufacturing = 5.2%

  • Information = 5.9%

• Four industries experienced wage growth below 2.0%

  • Mining & Logging = -0.3%

  • Education& Health Services = 1.9%

  • Other Services = 1.9%

  • Wholesale Trade = 1.9%

• The gap between the highest year-over-year wage increase versus the lowest was $112.57 per week.

  • Information = $107.02 year-over-year weekly wage increase

  • Mining & Logging = -$5.55 year-over-year weekly wage decrease.

• Hourly employees did not receive any additional income due to increased hours worked as the average workweek remained unchanged at 34.2 hours.

• The unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2% as the labor force grew 232,000 while employment grew 201,000.

• Virtually all of the increase in people reporting that they had become employed was in the Bachelor's Degree of Higher category.

  • The High School Graduate, No College and the Some College or Associate Degree categories experienced a decrease in employment.

• Even though the Bachelor's Degree or Higher category had the strongest employment growth, it also had the highest unemployment growth. 

  • All other educational categories experienced declines in unemployment.

Other data

• The Labor Force Participation rate rose from 62.4% to 62.5%

• The Underemployment rate fell from 8.0% to 7.9%

• The number of people working multiple jobs rose from 8,860,000 to 8,896,000.

  • The number of people working multiple jobs as a percent of total employed rose from 5.4% to 5.5%.

• The March nonfarm payroll data shows an economy that continues to create jobs at a steady pace.

  • That is important since jobs create income and income is the fuel that powers consumer spending.

  • Despite all of the noise, worry and uncertainty over President Trump's fiscal policies, the economy continued to produce jobs.

• March's nonfarm payroll report will do nothing to convince the Federal Reserve to lower its overnight borrowing rate.

• The impact of the new tariff tax going into effect on April 9th remain to be seen. 

  • If the tariff tax causes the economy to slow, companies may start to consider layoffs.

  • We should see evidence of this first in the weekly jobless claims report and ultimately in the nonfarm payroll report.

• March's nonfarm payroll report reinforces the message to ignore the noise of politics and focus on what is actually happening with your business and the economy.