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The US economy added 228,000 jobs in March, surpassing expectations, in a sign of resilience despite the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce.
Friday’s figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics far exceeded both February’s increase of 151,000 posts and the 135,000 predicted by economists polled by Reuters.
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency has led President Donald Trump’s charge to axe tens of thousands of positions in an aggressive effort to slim down the federal bureaucracy.
The jobs figure comes as the Federal Reserve considers how to respond to the twin threats of lacklustre growth and persistent inflation, both of which economists say could be exacerbated by the global tariffs unveiled by Trump this week.
Global markets have lurched downwards following Trump’s announcement of steep levies on the US’s trading partners on Wednesday, wiping out about $2.5tn of Wall Street market value and erasing the dollar’s post-election gains.
This is a developing story