US nonfarm payrolls strongly beat expectations in March

US nonfarm payrolls increased by 228K jobs in March, compared to February’s downwardly revised figure to 117K from initial release at 151K, and strongly beat expectations for 137K increase.

Upbeat March numbers boost optimism, though economists remain cautious and expect currently bright picture to darken in coming months on anticipated negative impact from extensive import tariffs that President Trump introduced two days ago.

The separate report showed that US unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1% in February and consensus for unchanged value in March.

Wages were also higher last month, ticking up to 0.3% from downwardly revised 0.2% previous month.

The data showed that labor market is still underpinned by low layoffs, with solid wage gains to contribute to economic expansion.

However, growing uncertainty over the global economic outlook, as markets are likely to be hit by fresh shockwaves by a counter measures that many US trading partners are planning to impose, warns that situation in the US labor market could deteriorate.

The US businesses have already been hesitant for stronger hiring, anticipating that trade war escalation will have a domino effect on all industries and likely result in job cuts which started by a mass firing of the US public sector workers.

Adding to darkening outlook were the recent economic data which showed that US economy stalled in the first three month this year that fuels fears that the economy would slide into recession.