On the March Jobs Report

431,000 net payrolls missed versus consensus expectations for 490,000, offset by strong upward revisions to the prior two months. But the labor force expanded almost all the way back to its pre-pandemic level. Given population growth, there are almost 1.5 million people still outside the labor force who could enter it and work to solve supply-side bottlenecks. The unemployment rate fell to a new post-pandemic low, just 15 bp from its pre-pandemic level. That improvement is shared across all ethnic, educational-attainment and gender categories, pointing to the Fed’s ideal of “inclusive maximum employment.”