Now a lot of businesses want to use AI to cut staff.

I'm David Brancaccio.

First, hiring much stronger than expected in the month just ended.

The government data today find 300,000 jobs were added to

payrolls. The unemployment rate fell slightly in March to 3.8 percent but wages

went up just three-tenths of a percent. Karen Petru is co-founder and managing partner at federal financial analytics in Washington.

Stronger hiring is a happy thing, unless maybe you're worried this could delay cuts in interest rates.

Good is definitely better than bad, but it's a little bit good and inflation remains more than

a little bit bad and that I think continues to translate not just into the Fed's predicament and the White House

is political problem but also into continuing challenges at the day-to-day level from most households.

All right, not to sound Pollyanna though, but we also have in this data news that

labor force participation, this is people coming in from the sidelines and getting jobs or

starting to look for jobs.

That went up and that's good.

I really like that number in a lot of ways better because it really speaks to people feeling

positive and that their wage compensation is going to make it worthwhile for

them to get out of the house essentially.

I think that number is in some ways a lot more positive than the actual wage data

per se.

But we'll have to see how it holds. I mean, we're all still talking about a tenth of a percentage point here or there.

Karen Petru, she's at Federal Financial Analytics. Thank you so much for helping us with this.

Thanks, David. it was a pleasure.

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