US employment rose at a faster pace than expected last month and hiring was much stronger than previously thought in the prior two months, a sign of resilience that should help the economy absorb the blow from belt-tightening in Washington.
Non-farm payrolls rose by 165,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 7.5 percent, the lowest level since December 2008, the US Department of Labor said on Friday.
The job counts for February and March were revised up by a net 114,000.
“This bolsters the case that the US economy will be able to survive the combined headwinds of sequestration and a deepening recession in Europe,” San Francisco-based Bank of the West chief economist Scott Anderson said.
Investors on Wall Street cheered the data, which beat economists’ expectations for a 145,000 jobs gain and a steady 7.6 percent reading on the unemployment rate.
US stocks rallied, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Dow Jones industrial average closing at record highs. The US dollar vaulted to a one-week high against the yen, while US Treasury debt prices tumbled.
Payrolls rose by 138,000 jobs in March, 50,000 more than previously reported, and job growth for February was revised up by 64,000 to 332,000, the largest increase since May 2010.
However, the gains last month were far below the 206,000 jobs per month average of the first quarter, the latest evidence the economy is cooling, even if not as quickly as earlier feared.
Indeed, the data provided a number of signs of a loss of momentum.
Construction employment fell and manufacturing payrolls were flat. The length of the average workweek pulled off a nine-month high and a gauge of the overall work effort fell.
Economists pin the slowdown largely on higher taxes that took hold at the start of the year and US$85 billion in federal government spending cuts, known as the sequester, that went into effect at the beginning of March. Economies overseas have also weakened, cutting into US export growth.
While the US economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the first quarter, data on construction spending, retail sales and trade suggested it ended the period with less momentum.
Further, factory data for last month imply the economy braked further at the start of the second quarter, a thesis supported by a report on Friday that showed the pace of growth in the services sector last month was the slowest in nine months.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”