What factors, such as inflation, affected the monthly jobless report?

What factors, such as inflation, affected¹ the monthly jobless report?

Transcript²

The Labor³ Department is issuing its monthly report card on jobs and unemployment. The job market has been unusually tight, which is pushing up both wages and prices.

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

The U.S. job market continues its rapid recovery. This morning, the Labor Department reported employers added 431,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell 3.6%. Pandemic fears are fading for the moment, and that's helping⁴ to draw more people back into the workforce⁵. President Biden hailed the news.

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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: And more and more Americans get jobs as they do, it's going to help ease the supply pressures we've seen. And that's good news for fighting inflation. And it's good news for our economy, and it means that our economy has gone from being on the mend to being on the move.

MARTINEZ: NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now with all the details from today's jobs report. Scott, there had been a little bit of uncertainty⁶ about how the economy would perform after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it seems like the job market is pretty resilient.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE⁷: It really does. There had been some indications that we might see a sharper drop in hiring as gasoline prices soared and consumers had less money to spend in other parts of the economy. But hiring seems to be holding up very well. Bars and restaurants added another 61,000 jobs in March, retailers⁸ added 49,000 jobs, factories, 38,000. What's more, job gains for January and February were revised up by a total of 95,000 jobs. And as you say, the unemployment rate fell from 3.8% to 3.6%. What's more, we saw unemployment decline across the board, you know, for men, women, Latinos, Asian Americans. African Americans actually saw the biggest drop in unemployment last month. Although at 6.2%, the Black unemployment rate is still elevated.

MARTINEZ: So still fair to say, though, that this remains⁹ a tight job market.

HORSLEY: Yeah, very tight. Even that 3.6% unemployment rate might understate how tight the job market is. In ordinary times, there are usually about two unemployed¹⁰ workers for every job opening. Right now, we've got almost the opposite situation. At the beginning of March, there were nearly two vacant jobs for every unemployed worker. So businesses are having to look harder to find scarce labor. They are raising wages. On average, wages are up 5.6% over the last 12 months. That's certainly good for workers. But those wage gains are worrisome for the Federal Reserve because to the extent that employers pass the cost of those higher wages on to customers, that can make already high inflation even higher. Here's how Fed Chairman Jerome Powell described it during a gathering¹¹ of business economists¹³ last week.

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JEROME POWELL: This is a labor market that is out of balance, that really has an excess of demand over supply. It's great for workers, but we need the labor market to be sustainably tight.

HORSLEY: And Powell and his colleagues are worried that what we have right now is not sustainable, that if inflation continues to climb unchecked, it will ultimately derail the economy and keep the U.S. from getting back to full employment. So that's why you see the Fed beginning to raise interest rates in an effort to tamp¹⁴ down demand and get prices under control.

MARTINEZ: What else jumps out at you from today's report?

HORSLEY: Well, on top of the healthy number of jobs added in March and the drop in the unemployment rate, it's good to see how many people joined or rejoined the workforce last month. Four hundred eighteen thousand people came off the sidelines in March and started working or looking for work. That follows an increase of more than 300,000 in February. So the labor force is still smaller than it was before the pandemic, but the gap has narrowed, and that's good to see.

Part of this, of course, is a result of the improving health outlook. If you go back to early February, there were almost 8 million people who told the Census¹⁵ Bureau they couldn't work because either they were sick with COVID or taking care of somebody who was. By early March, that number had dropped to less than 3 million. Julia Pollock, who is the chief economist¹² at the job search website ZipRecruiter, has seen an uptick in the number of people searching for jobs online.

JULIA POLLAK: People have had enough of sitting around doing nothing. Also with COVID relief payments fading away, people are starting to feel a little bit more financial pressure to come back to work.

HORSLEY: Pollock is calling this the great return, which would be a partial reversal of what some had dubbed¹⁶ the great resignation. Now, it is still the case that millions of people are quitting their jobs every month, but in most cases, they're quitting in order to take another, usually better, job. So really what we're seeing is an employment market with a whole lot of churn and a lot of moving pieces.

MARTINEZ: NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks a lot.

HORSLEY: Good to be with you.

1 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

6 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

7 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

8 retailers   

零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• High street retailers reported a marked increase in sales before Christmas. 商业街的零售商报告说圣诞节前销售量显著提高。
• Retailers have a statutory duty to provide goods suitable for their purpose. 零售商有为他们提供符合要求的货品的法定义务。

9 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

10 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

11 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

12 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

13 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 tamp   

v.捣实，砸实

参考例句：

• Then I tamp down the soil with the back of a rake.然后我用耙子的背将土壤拍实。
• Philpott tamped a wad of tobacco into his pipe.菲尔波特往烟斗里塞了一卷碎烟叶。

15 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

16 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》