Leisure and hospitality — think restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues — is bearing the brunt of initial job losses here. Employment in that sector fell 2.7% in March according to this report, marking the worst month on record. -MB 
The unemployment rate jumped to 4.4% from 3.5%, but that understates the damage to some extent. The labor force participation rate posted a 0.7%pt monthly drop (to 62.7%) that was tied for its biggest on record. -LK
In addition, the employment to population ratio took its biggest one-month tumble on record, falling 1.1%pts to 60%. That takes us below the March 2017 level, undoing three years of progress. -LK
Adding up the hourly earnings, hours worked and headcount data in this report, the numbers suggest labor income had already fallen by $950MM in the first two weeks of March. -MB
That helps explain why the fiscal response to the economic damage posed by the coronavirus includes the government stepping into the breach to remedy this shortfall, to prevent income problems from becoming mass credit problems. -LK
The gains made by typically marginalized parts of the workforce during the long streak of rising payrolls are fast reversing: The unemployment rate for Americans with less than a high school diploma increased by more than the national average in March. -LK
Thanks for tuning in to see the end of the record-long streak of job gains. @boes_ and I have enjoyed taking your questions. We’ll see you in April.
We wish we could say the data will look better by then but things aren’t shaping up that way. -LK
We wish we could say the data will look better by then but things aren’t shaping up that way. -LK
