The job market remains incredibly healthy — but the tariff storm could upend things

The American labor market just provided a bit of reassuring economic news at the end of a rocky week.

U.S. employers added 228,000 jobs in March. That’s about twice the number added the previous month, when revised figures show employers added 111,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1% in February, as 232,000 people joined or rejoined the workforce.

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Jobs were added in health care, hospitality and construction. Retailers also added jobs — partly as the result of people returning to work after a strike.

A strong labor market has been a source of stability in recent years, as businesses and consumers battled high inflation. Rising wages have enabled people to keep spending, which has kept the overall economy humming along. Average wages in March were up 3.8% from a year ago.

But there are worries about the outlook

Despite the positive labor report on Friday, there are rising concerns about the economy.

The stock market suffered its worst drop in five years on Thursday — and is headed for steep losses on Friday as well — after President Trump ordered steep new tariffs on most of the goods the U.S. imports.

Spending growth has slowed this spring as cautious shoppers wrestle with uncertainty over the economic outlook. Higher tariffs and a falling stock market could be a further drag in the months to come.

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Friday’s jobs report also shows some of the effects of the administration’s large-scale layoffs. The federal government cut 4,000 jobs last month, and another 11,000 in February, according to the Labor Department’s official tally. That’s based on a survey conducted in the middle of the month, but overall job cuts in the federal government are significantly larger.

Between February and March, the cost-cutting team led by Elon Musk has signaled cuts of more than 280,000 federal workers and contractors in 27 agencies, according to a count kept by the outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“Job cut announcements were dominated last month by Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) plans to eliminate positions in the federal government,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at the firm. “It would have otherwise been a fairly quiet month for layoffs.”

Surveys of both manufacturing and service sector managers by the Institute for Supply Management this week also point to a shrinking demand for workers.