, data show
Blue-collar jobs continued to experience surprising gains in hiring and pay even as the US job market cooled in March, according to data from the Department of Labor.
Overall, the US economy added just 103,000 non-farm jobs in March — far fewer than economists were expecting and the weakest growth in six months. Yet even within the broad slowdown, blue-collar jobs stayed surprisingly resilient.
Employers added 31,000 jobs in the construction sector, with average hourly wages rising to $29.27, a 3.8 percent increase from the year before. Manufacturing also experienced a strong month, with 18,000 new jobs created and an average hourly wage of $22.26, a 4.1 percent jump from the same time last year.
The data was a sign that the strong economic expansion of recent years has trickled down to the lowest rungs of the labor force, noted Torsten Slok, chief economist at Deutsche Bank.
“Blue-collar jobs are outperforming white-collar jobs in terms of job growth, and there is still a lot of upward pressure on wages for blue-collar jobs,” Slok said.
The strength of the blue-collar job market could have wide-reaching implications for American workers, noted Kathy Bostjancic, chief US financial economist at Oxford Economics.
“This is an important segment of the job market, and if wages and job growth remain strong here, it can be a major source of wage growth for all workers,” Bostjancic said. “And that could help to fuel consumer spending.”
