The federal government will release its latest monthly employment report on Friday, but new labour market data in March will reflect an essentially different era, as President Donald Trump’s shock announcement on Wednesday called for the global economy to be destroyed with wider tariffs on US imports.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will announce the survey at 8:30am ET. Dow Jones estimates showed net new payroll forecasts of around 140,000 compared to the previous 151,000, with unemployment rates not at 4.1% for the month.
It would represent a relatively healthy round of employment despite Elon Musk’s massive federal job cuts in government efficiency. According to another report released Thursday by Jobs and career consultant challenger Gray & Christmas, Doge was responsible for roughly 216,000 cuts in the federal workforce. Challenger uses a variety of BLS data to track changes in economic jobs, so that numbers may not be addressed by federal investigations.
But if the general direction of challenger numbers is right, that means that even before Trump’s Rose Garden speech this week, the economy had already shown a more significant slowdown that new tariffs were likely to worsen.
“This month’s (employment) report could take a backseat on ongoing negotiations regarding tariff rates and the possibility of escalating retaliatory tariffs from US trading partners,” Matthew Weller, global research director at Forex.com, wrote in a note to his client on Thursday.
He continued. “It’s purely focused on the labour market. Even the tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China last month could have little impact on reading in March (work), but there’s a risk that we can see the cutting edge of government efficiency (DOGE) jobs.”
Citi analysts have a lower forecast for net employment, at 95,000, with unemployment rising to 4.2%.
“This will mostly reflect the low employment situation when employment is starting pickups,” they wrote in a memo last week. “However, this slowdown will begin around May and continue into the summer when weaknesses from low recruitment may be enhanced by federal employment cuts and the ripple effects of the private sector. Evidence that the economy is already beginning to slow down greater negative risks has once again had the Fed’s cut rate in May.”
Other employment data released this week shows that the wider layoffs still remained calm, but so did hiring.
However, data from March is firmly featured in the rearview mirror for most analysts as Trump officially launched an effort to restructure the US economy.
“Wider than expected (employment data points) could be a nail in the co-council of the US economy as the recession is likely to increase,” a Barclays analyst said Thursday.
“Unfortunately, given the critical tariff outlook that will clash with the US job market, a more encouraging reading could easily be dismissed as “outdated.” In this context, we feel this is a loss situation for the market. ”