Labor Force Participation Rate Ticks up but Still Below Pre-Pandemic Levels

Although the U.S. labor force participation rate increased next month, the numbers are now below pre-pandemic levels.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ( BLS ) reported on April 7 that the participation rate for March had increased to 62.6 percent.

The work to population ratio also increased over the past month to 60.4 percent, which is still below pre-pandemic levels of 63.3 percent and 61.1 percent between, as of February 2020.

In the meantime, the BLS paper suggested that despite the Fed’s’s nine consecutive rate increases since last year to beat rising prices, both the U.S. market and the job market are still on solid ground.

Employers added 236 000 opportunities in March, but fewer than the 326 000 they added in February, indicating that the labor market is still robust.

Fed officials estimated that the middle poverty rate had reach 4.5 percent by the end of 2023, which would be a sharp increase in unemployment and typically signify economic downturn.

While total hourly wages increased by 0.3 percent last month, slightly more than February, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent in March, just below the 3.4 cent increase in January.

Fed Will Probably Increase Interest Rates

Policymakers believe that the rate of training is putting upward pressure on wages and prices, so the Federal Reserve may decide to keep raising interest rates for the next few months based on the encouraging job growth figures.

Mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and company loans usually experience higher interest rates as a result of an increase in the rate.

As of February, the Consumer Price Index increased by 5 % annually, or 4.6 %, excluding food and energy prices, which is significantly higher than the Fed’s’s 2 % target.

Most academics are wary of the central bank system, despite the Fed’s’s efforts to achieve a soft landing, which would calm inflation just as without sending the U.S. economy into recession.

According to the most recent economic data, a crisis may be imminent, with U.S. development declining as international trade suffers.

Manufacturing activity contracted in March for a fifth consecutive month, according to the Institute for Supply Management ( ISM ), an association of purchasing managers.

Another indication that the world economy is slowing down is the Commerce Department’s’s separate report from this week showing a decline in American imports and exports in February.

Advancement in the products business

Two days later, the ISM reported that next month’s’s rise in the services sector, which was responsible for the vast majority of American jobs, had significantly slowed.

According to Kansas City Fed economists Karlye Dilts Stedman and Emily Pollard, the services sector in particular has significantly contributed to current prices because of persistent labor market imbalances where supply is still limited and demand is strong.

It also tends to react less rapidly to rising interest rates because program formation requires less capital and expertise consumption are less likely to become financed. Therefore, it might take longer for monetary policy to have an impact on a significant cause of original prices.

According to the Kansas City Fed, the services sector is less sensitive to changes in financial policy than the income growth and inflation that have recently occurred.

The majority of America’s’s economic performance comes from the service industry, which are also more labor-intensive and less sensitive to price changes.

The financial and generosity sectors are always expanding, but they are also starting to slow down.

Due to the bank failures of two local banks last month, as well as rising interest rates and stricter payment restrictions, lenders may become even more unstable and consumers’ and businesses’ borrowing and spending may be curtailed.

Despite ever-increasing borrowing costs, the global market has so far been adaptable, and the U.S. GDP has remained strong in the second half of 2022.