The March unemployment rate fell — but there's a catch
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The U.S. economy added 178,000 new jobs in March, and the unemployment rate went down. That’s a big improvement from last month’s disappointing jobs report, but there’s more than meets the eye to these numbers. We’ll explain in today’s episode. Also: SpaceX filed paperwork for an IPO, and the company’s high predicted valuation isn’t the only thing making waves. Plus, some food for thought before this weekend’s Final Four basketball games and inevitable betting ads: “This Is Uncomfortable” host Reema Khrais explains the effects of prediction markets on our wallets and our brains.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The unemployment rate fell in March. There is, though, a catch or two. From Marketplace, I'm Sabri Beneshore in for David Brancaccio. The U.S. economy added 178,000 new jobs in March, and the unemployment rate came down to 4.3%. This is pretty positive, but there is more than meets the eye to these numbers. |
| 0:23.4 | Christopher Lowe is chief economist at FHN Financial in New York. He's here to go through it with us. |
| 0:28.3 | Hi, Chris. Good morning, Sabri. |
| 0:31.0 | So unemployment rate down, jobs up. Do we feel good about that? |
| 0:35.4 | You know, you have to feel good about it, right? It's the best job growth we've seen in over a year, and the unemployment rate dropping back to about |
| 0:46.9 | four and a quarter percent, which is also something we haven't seen in months. |
| 0:52.6 | So, yeah, it's a good, healthy job market. |
| 0:57.1 | 4.3% unemployment rate coming down. Is that because the labor market is heating up or more people |
| 1:04.3 | are getting jobs? What is that about? You know, I wish I could say it was. There was a lot of |
| 1:08.7 | weird stuff going on in the quarter. And the biggest thing was that ice storm that locked in the south through the end of January, early, February. Because of that job growth was probably a little overstated in March. The drop in the unemployment rate is primarily because there's fewer people in the labor |
| 1:31.4 | force, either working or looking for jobs. It's a direct reflection of the lack of immigration |
| 1:39.4 | in the last year or so. Workers are getting harder to find. Paychecks are up three and a half |
| 1:47.1 | percent year over year. That's faster than inflation. Should we feel good about that? |
| 1:53.2 | Yeah, absolutely. Look, anytime wage growth is outstripping inflation, that's a good thing, |
| 1:59.2 | because it does mean the affordability crisis |
| 2:03.4 | post-pandemic is still receiving. But it's also the slowest wage growth in the cycle so far. |
| 2:13.7 | So this is sort of the flip side of the declining unemployment rate. The declining unemployment |
| 2:20.3 | rate tells you the job market's getting tighter. But the fact that wage growth is slowing, |
| 2:26.0 | that tells you that at least for now, you know, there is no shortage of labor. Because if there |
| 2:33.1 | was, then companies would be paying up. |
| 2:36.8 | Christopher Lowe, chief economist at FHN Financial. |
| 2:39.8 | Thank you so much. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.