Jobs report and how does the Fed respond to all of this?

In the last jobs report before the global trade earthquake of April 2^nd saw 228k net jobs added in March, well above the estimate of 140k with about half of that offset by a downward revision of 48k combined in the prior two months. The household survey saw a job gain of 201k which because it was just below the 232k person rise in the size of the labor force, the unemployment rate ticked up by one tenth to 4.2%. The all in U6 rate which jumped by 50 bps to 8% in February to a multi year high fell one tenth to 7.9%.

The participation rate rose one tenth to 62.5% after falling by two tenths last month. The key 25-54 yr olds though saw a drop of two tenths to 83.3% which is the lowest since December 2023. Hours worked was 34.2 for a 2^nd month after touching 34.1 in January which was the lowest since 2010 not including Covid. Average hourly earnings were up by .3% m/o/m as expected though the prior month was revised down by one tenth and was up by 3.8% y/o/y. Combining hours worked and hourly wages puts the weekly earnings up by .3% m/o/m after a 5 tenths gain last month and higher by 3.2% y/o/y.

The federal government shed 4k jobs but assume it will be more than that when the April jobs report comes out. State and local though added jobs. With respect to services, again private education/health led the job gains, up by 77k, almost half of the 209k private sector jobs added. That was followed by trade/transport of 48k which includes 24k from retail. Leisure/hospitality added 43k after losing a total of 31k over the past two months combined. Financial services and professional/business services added modest jobs while temp jobs were lost for a 3rd straight month and information shed 2k.