The US added slightly more jobs than expected in March, and the unemployment rate moved back near a 70-year low, underscoring the labor market resilience at the heart of the Fed’s contention that the economy can handle “higher for longer” rates.

By Friday, consensus for the NFP headline was 230,000. The actual print, 236,000, was thus a beat, although not by the kind of wide margin that might materially alter the market’s expectations for monetary policy.

Technically, March was the slowest month for job creation since a decline in December of 2020, but “slower” is a misnomer. The pace is robust.

Revisions subtracted 32,000 from January, but added 15,000 to February’s headline, which now stands at 326,000.

Private payrolls rose 189,000, less than forecast and near the low-end of the range. On Wednesday, ADP’s latest report showed private sector job creation slowed to 145,000 in March.

To be sure, there were signs of moderation in the NFP figures. Leisure and hospitality added 72,000 jobs last month, lower than the average monthly gain of 95,000 seen over the past six months, for example. Food services and drinking places accounted for half of the gain.

After March’s additions, the sector is just 2.2% below pre-pandemic levels of employment. I’ve previously suggested leisure and hospitality wouldn’t manage to reclaim all the jobs lost to COVID this cycle. Unless the recession starts soon, it’s a decent bet those jobs will, in fact, be reclaimed, or at least for all intents and purposes.

Notwithstanding the gradual deceleration evidenced by the headline, employment gains in March either matched the six-month trend or were flat across industries and sectors, suggesting little in the way of recessionary angst among employers. Manufacturing shed 1,000 jobs, just a fourth of the expected drop, although consensus for that is just blindfolded darts.

The figures came on the heels of revisions to the jobless claims series, which now suggest the number of Americans applying for or receiving benefits has been higher than previously reported.

According to Challenger, job cuts across the US ran at the seventh-briskest Q1 pace on record during the first quarter, even as the economy created more than a million jobs on net over the same period. The latest JOLTS report showed that although openings fell more than expected in February, there are still 1.7 open jobs for every American counted as officially unemployed.

The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5% in March, Friday’s government report showed. That might as well be the lowest ever (it’s not, technically, but one more tick gets us back to “lowest since 1953” levels).

At 62.6%, the participation rate moved up to a new post-pandemic “high,” but the scare quotes are there to denote that “high” is a very relative term in this context. (It was 63.3% in February of 2020, 66% the month the GFC recession began and above 67% before the dot-com bust.)

Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% MoM in March, Friday’s data showed. That was in line with consensus. The YoY print was 4.2%, a tick below estimates, and the lowest since June of 2021, but still nearly a full percentage point too high to be consistent with 2% CPI.

Bottom line: There was nothing to see in this report. Assuming no big downside surprise from March CPI (and no more bank failures), the Fed can hike again in May.