March 2026 Employment Situation — 2026-04-03

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 178,000 in March, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in construction, and in transportation and warehousing. Federal government employment continued to decline. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note. Both the unemployment rate, at 4.3 percent, and the number of unemployed people, at 7.2 million, changed little in March. These measures also changed little over the year. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for people who are Asian (3.7 percent) decreased in March.