**MNI 5 Things: US Payrolls +103k, Earnings +0.3%>

--5 Things We Learned From The March Employment Data

By Sara Haire and Holly Stokes

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - The following are the key points from the 

March employment report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Friday: 

     - The payrolls data were mixed. A soft gain in headline and private 

payroll number followed an already strong upward revision to February. 

Average hourly earnings grew as expected, but this was likely due to a 

skewed labor force from severe winter weather and calendar effects. The 

unemployment rate did not decline as analysts had expected as labor 

force participation remained strong, however it still remains at low 

levels. 

     - Nonfarm payrolls saw a much softer than expected gain of 103,000 

vs the 195,000 expected. Private payrolls also came in lower than 

expected with a 102,000 gain vs the 200,000 expected. An MNI analysis 

had shown a tendency of analysts to overestimate payrolls in March, 

overestimating in 8 of the last 10 years, so this continues that trend.  

     - Despite analysts slightly overestimating average hourly earnings 

in the past eight months, the report met their expectations for a 0.3% 

rise, with the unrounded showing a solid +0.2992% gain. This pushed the 

year-over-year to +2.7% from +2.6% last month. Markets had estimated a 

low 0.1% rise, so this should surprise, perhaps delivering some offset 

to the lower than expected payrolls. Average weekly hours stayed at 34.5 

in the month, along with aggregate weekly hours rising by 0.1%. 

     - The unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, however came very close 

to dropping to 4.0% (4.0708% from 4.1415% in February). The 

participation rate fell by 0.1pp to 62.9%, but stayed higher than many 

analysts had forecasted. The U-6 Rate fell to 8.0% from 8.2% in 

February.     

     - Payrolls in January and February were revised down by a net 

50,000, reflecting an upward revision to February, but a steep downward 

revision to January. There were stronger gains for manufacturing (+22k), 

health care and social assistance (+34k), and professional and business 

services (+33k), however there was weakness in construction (-15k) and 

retail (-4k).

     ** MNI Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 ** 

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