RPLS: The US economy adds 19k jobs in March

• Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) shows the economy added approximately 19k jobs in March 2026. This modest gain was driven by the Health Care and Social Assistance sector. Meanwhile, Retail and Leisure and Hospitality showed significant declines.

• Within these sectors, the employers with the largest increases in employment were HCA Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente in the Health Care and Social Assistance sector, and Keller Williams Realty and JPMorgan Chase in Financial Activities. On the other hand, Hy-Vee and Target had the largest employment losses in the Retail sector.

• Job openings continued to decline in March, as labor demand cools broadly across the economy. Month-on-month declines were led by Professional and Business Services, Leisure and Hospitality, and Retail.

• Salaries from new job postings ticked down slightly in March, decreasing by 2.6% from February 2026. Sectors driving the decline were Education and Health, Leisure and Hospitality, and Mining & Oil.

Employment

Revelio Public Labor Statistics (RPLS) shows the economy added 19.1k jobs in March 2026. The gain was driven by Health Care, Financial Activities, and Public Administration. Meanwhile, Retail, Leisure and Hospitality suffered the largest job losses in March 2026.

Within these sectors, the employers with the largest declines were Target and Hy-Vee in Retail, and Starbucks and Brinker International in Leisure and Hospitality. On the positive side, the employers adding the largest number of jobs were HCA Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente in Health Care; Keller Williams Realty and JPMorgan Chase in Finance.

The sectors adding and losing jobs look familiar from past months. Health Care and Social Assistance continues to lead the modest job gains, and retail trade continues to lose a lot of jobs. This continues to widen the divide between relative strength in professional service industries and greater losses in blue collar jobs.

Layoff notices

We observe a further decline in the number of employees notified with layoffs as part of WARN layoff notices in March. The number of employees notified of layoffs declined from ~30.4k employees in February to 16.6k in March.

The Financial Activities sector saw the largest number of employees notified of layoffs in March 2026, followed by the Manufacturing sector, and the Information sector. Within the Financial Activities sector, HBC and South Korea’s SK group (through its subsidiary company SK Batteries America) contributed the largest share of layoffs. In Information, we see an initial signal from Oracle as a major contributor to layoffs following yesterday’s announcement to cut thousands of jobs.

Hiring & attrition

Both hiring and attrition ticked down in March, as the labor market continues to be defined by low churn. JOLTS data through February show the openings rate is now as low as it was at the peak of the pandemic, and comparable to 2017 levels before that. Our data, which is highly correlated with JOLTS, show a continuation of this trend into March, with hiring continuing to reach new lows in our series.

Looking across industries, we see substantial declines in Agriculture and Forestry, Information, Retail, Health Care, and Construction. Weaker hiring in the Health Care Sector is especially worrying, as it has been at the center of recent jobs growth.

Job postings

Labor demand continues to cool in the US, as the number of active job postings across the country ticked down again in March. The vast majority of industries experienced a net decrease in job openings, with Education and Health and the Construction sectors being the sole exceptions.

Looking at the total volume of job openings, the largest decreases were in Professional and Business Services, Leisure and Hospitality, and Retail. Many of the largest declines were among job placement and staffing firms, along with major food chains (Wendy’s and McDonald’s) and retailers (Costco and Home Depot).

Salaries from new job openings

Salaries from new job postings ticked down slightly in March, decreasing by 2.6% from February 2026. Sectors driving the decline were Leisure and Hospitality, Mining & Oil and Manufacturing.

Within these sectors Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and Jersey Mike’s Subs for Leisure and Hospitality, Vulcan Materials and BP for Mining & Oil and Mondelez and Estee Lauder for Manufacturing were among the companies with the largest month-over-month declines in salaries in new job postings. Public Administration and Financial Activities saw increases in salaries from new job postings.

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