Excellent News in March Employment Report

Submitted on April 1, 2011 - 9:31am
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Today's blog features our first posting from the Department of Commerce's Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, Dr. Rebecca Blank, who addresses the March employment report below.

The employment report for March 2011 provides excellent news: private payrolls grew by well over 200,000 for the second consecutive month and the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.8%.  Additionally, nonfarm employment was revised upward by 5,000 in January and by 2,000 in February.  (For more about revisions, see our Wednesday post.)  The widespread job gains in March add to other positive signs about the labor market, including the continued drop in new claims for unemployment insurance.  Overall, this month’s report is a very good one that signals ongoing job growth.  To dive a little deeper, see below. 

  • Total payroll employment —private employment plus federal, state and local government employment — rose by 216,000, above market expectations. 
  • Private sector payroll employment, which is the best measure of the labor market recovery, increased by 230,000 jobs in March. (See Figure 1.) This follows gains that have exceeded 100,000 per month in seven of the last eight months.  Gains were spread across industry sectors.
  • The increase in private sector employment was offset by declines in public sector employment, which decreased for the fifth consecutive month.  State and local government employment has been trending down, with net losses of 455,000 jobs over the past two years. (See Figure 2.) Even in mild recessions, state and local government employment tends to lag employment recovery in other areas, since state and local government revenue depends on a strong local economy and solid property values.
  • The unemployment rate declined to 8.8%. Since November, the unemployment rate has decreased 1.0 percentage points.
  • Temporary employment rose by 29,000 in March.  (See Figure 3.) Temporary employment has risen in 17 of the past 19 months, with total gains of more than half a million jobs.  Economists tend to focus on this because increases in temporary employment may lead to further growth in other areas of employment.  Why?  Because companies tend to hire temporary workers before they commit to hiring permanent employees.

  Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll Employment

Figure 2: State and Local Government Employment

Figure 3: Temporary Help and Private Employment

 

~Dr. Rebecca Blank, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, U.S. Department of Commerce

April 1, 2011