U.S. Added 916,000 Jobs in March as Economy Recovers

Hiring accelerated in March as employers added 916,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday, the biggest gain since August. The unemployment rate fell to 6.0%.

The U.S. labor market is poised for a hiring spree that could deliver jobs to the industries, regions and workers hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal project employers will add an average of 514,000 jobs each month over the next year, for a total of more than six million. That would mark the best 12-month stretch of job creation in decades but leave overall employment totals below where they stood before the pandemic.

The jobs rebound—which began late last spring but temporarily stalled in December—is gaining renewed momentum as more people are vaccinated against Covid-19, states lift restrictions on business activity, and consumers grow more comfortable dining, shopping and traveling outside their homes.

“There’s a seismic shift going on in the U.S. economy,” said Beth Ann Bovino, a Ph.D. economist at S&P Global. The confluence of additional federal stimulus, growing consumer confidence and the feeling that the pandemic is close to abating—despite rising infections in recent weeks—is propelling economic growth and hiring, she said.

Stronger growth should return jobs to industries with the deepest losses during the pandemic, such as restaurants, stores and hotels, and support additional job growth at warehouses, delivery services and manufacturing. The gains could provide more employment opportunities to women and racial minorities, who disproportionately lost jobs last year. And job growth could pick up in hard-hit cities in the Northeast and California, and in tourist hotbeds such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla.