Job growth slows sharply; unemployment rate still 4.1%

Washington — Job growth slowed sharply in March from the pace of recent months as employers in most sectors took a breather in hiring.

Wage gains went up only slightly last month even though businesses are finding it increasingly harder to attract qualified workers and more people are leaving their jobs voluntarily.

The nation's unemployment rate remained at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent for the sixth straight month, the Labor Department said Friday.

There was no indication that the Trump administration's brewing trade war with China, which has jolted stock markets in recent weeks, had taken a bite out of hiring.

Although last month's net job creation of 103,000 was below analysts' forecasts, economists instead attributed much of the slowdown to a payback for the unusually big burst of 326,000 new positions added in February. Milder than usual weather in February had bolstered construction payrolls, but in March that partially reversed.

American manufacturers, meanwhile, kept adding a healthy number of jobs last month.

Most experts took the overall disappointing job numbers in stride, given that they were just one month's data. For the entire first quarter, job growth has averaged about 202,000 a month, enough to keep up with the growing workforce population.

“The strong job market does appear to be drawing back some people who have been out of the labor force for a significant time,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday. Those people include workers who had previously reported a disability, he added. “Anecdotal reports indicate that employers are increasingly willing to take on and train workers they would not have considered in the past.”

Speaking in Chicago after the release of the jobs report, Powell said that the Fed expects the employment situation to remain strong, suggesting that the central bank will carry out its telegraphed plan to keep raising interest rates gradually, two or perhaps three more times this year.