[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Saeng-hye] Bloomberg reported on the 3rd (local time) that the number of nonfarm payrolls in the US decreased by 701,000 in March compared to the previous month.
This figure is significantly below the market experts' forecast of 100,000. It is the first time since September 2010 that new jobs have shown a decline. US nonfarm jobs had maintained an increase of around 200,000 per month.
The unemployment rate rose from 3.5% in February to 4.4% in March, which is higher than the experts' forecast of 3.8%.
Although the employment indicators deteriorated sharply, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) pointed out that the data only reflects up to mid-March, so it does not accurately capture the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.
Earlier, it was reported that about 10 million people filed for unemployment benefits in the last two weeks of March. Accordingly, the exact impact of the 'unemployment crisis' is expected to be revealed in the April employment data.
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