US labour mkt nears full recovery

WASHINGTON, Apr 03 (AFP): The US labour market has almost recovered from the mass joblessness caused by the pandemic, adding hundreds of thousands of positions last month and sending the unemployment rate nearly where it was before Covid-19 broke out nationwide.
The Labor Department reported Friday that the unemployment rate fell more than analysts had predicted in March to 3.6 per cent, a hair above its February 2020 level of 3.5 per cent, while the economy added 431,000 jobs in the month.
Though the hiring total was slightly below analysts' forecasts, it was nonetheless a strong figure that underscored how far the economy has come since the pandemic started two years ago.