Hiring slowed in March as U.S. job market shows signs of cooling

Employers across the U.S. continued to hire at a steady pace last month, but the labor market showed signs of cooling in the face of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow the economy.

The economy added 236,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported Friday, in line with forecasters’ expectations of about 240,000 payroll gains. The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%, from 3.6% in February. Revised data also showed that hiring at the start of the year was somewhat slower than the blockbuster figures initially estimated.

“The 236,000 gain in non-farm payrolls in March adds to the evidence that the economy’s strong start to the year was partly a weather-related blip, with momentum now fading again,” Andrew Hunter, deputy chief U.S. economist with Capital Economics, said in a report. “With the sharp fall in job openings and upward trend in jobless claims also pointing to a cooling in labor demand, and the drag from the recent banking turmoil still to feed through, we expect employment growth to slow more sharply soon.”

Wage growth slowed, with average hourly earnings rising 4.2% over the past 12 months, down from 4.6% in February.

And more workers came off the sidelines, with the labor participation rate — a measure of workers who are employed or looking for work — edging up to 62.6%.

This is a developing story.