First Friday: Jobs Are Up. So Why Does the Economy Feel Worse?

0:00Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Eid Mubarak, and Happy Holy. Right now, four out of the five major world religions are celebrating the holidays of springtime. Happy spring, unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case, happy fall. Let's kick off the April 2026 First Friday episode. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything. This show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship, acronym, double I FIRE. I'm your host, Paula Pan. I have a master's in economic reporting from Columbia.

0:41Once a month, on the first Friday of every month, I do a macroeconomic episode. This only happens once a month, always on the first Friday. We take a look at the economy, the stock market, the Fed, interest rates, inflation. We see what's going on in the bigger world. And right now, there's a lot. So let's get started. We get to start off with some fantastic news. March blew it out of the water when it came to job growth. At least that is what we've learned from the BLS jobs report that just came out this morning, the U.S. economy added 178 ,000 jobs last month.

1:26We're back, baby. At least, okay, let's not get irrationally exuberant, but it's a pretty stellar jobs report, and it's way better than what people expected after reading the ADP report. All right, so let's break it down. First, if you've been listening to these First Friday episodes for a while, you know that two days ahead of when the jobs report comes out, so two days ago on Wednesday, ADP, which is a private payroll processor, publishes their own report. Now their own report only looks at private sector data. ADP is a private payroll processor, so they just look at their own customers, but they have a lot of their own customers, so it's a huge data set.

2:08according to the ADP report, private sector job growth totaled 62 ,000 new jobs in the month of March. And so on Wednesday, we all looked at that and went, okay, cool. That's good. That's better than expected. That's nice. Cautious optimism. We're good. And then this morning, the BLS jobs report dropped and it gave a number that was triple what the ADP report said. It gave a number that was triple of what people expected, what economists expected. So according to the BLS jobs report for the month of March, we have 178 ,000 new jobs that were added to the US economy. Our unemployment rate has ticked down a little bit, not much, but it's 4.3%.

3:00The job gains, according to the BLS report, mostly occurred in healthcare, in construction, Interestingly, they said there were some gains in transportation. That actually contradicts a different report, which we're going to talk about in a moment, and also in warehousing. Jobs in the federal government continue to decline. The overall labor force participation rate is steady. Average hourly earnings for all employees rose just a smidge by two-tenths of a percent. Over the year, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.5%, meaning they've exceeded inflation. So it is overall a very optimistic report.

3:40Now, I will say, because this optimism should be a little cautious, it's important to keep in mind that BLS reports get revised three times, in fact. They get revised one month later, two months later, and then there's a big annual revision. And that's a standard part of the process. So given that this jump in new hires so dramatically exceeds expectations, triples expectations, we will see whether or not there are revisions. Time will tell. And we should also take a look at other reports to see how the BLS data, you know, to get a comprehensive look, to look at the BLS data in the context of the ADP data, which, as we said, reported 62 ,000 new jobs.

4:31We'll also, in a moment, we're going to talk about the JOLTS data. We're going to talk about the Challenger Gray and Christmas data. We'll talk about some other surveys as well. And by the way, if you're wondering why am I being so cautious, it's because this is such a deviation from what we've seen in the past. I mean, we have been looking at months of a storyline of being in a low-hire, low-fire environment. And so there are a few possible interpretations of this BLS data. It might be that the low-hire, low-fire environment that we have been in is coming to a close, or it might be that we had a great month of March, but later in the spring, we will have some reversion to the mean.

5:12Or it might be that we have to look back on the previous several months worth of data and reinterpret that data with a new lens. There are a lot of possibilities, but this morning's BLS report, which so exceeded expectations, I mean, what a stellar jobs report. It introduces a new variable and kind of shakes up the game when When it comes to understanding what kind of a job market we are in, that's the point, right? The whole purpose of this report is to get a sense of what's the job situation out there. And now we have one new data point that is a bit of an outlier data point that says, maybe, just maybe, the job situation is a little bit better than we thought.

5:59Of course, the BLS isn't the only game in town. There's also this thing called the JOLTS survey. It's the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. This measures something different than jobs. This measures job openings. You can see subtly related but different. So how many jobs are available? That's what the JOLTS data tracks. The report that came out at the end of March tracked the data for February, and it showed that February sucked. There were 6.8 million job vacancies, according to the latest JOLTS report, and that is a decrease of about 358 ,000 over the previous month. And that marks the biggest monthly decline in job openings since last September.

6:44No, sorry, I take that back. Since two Septembers ago, since September of 2024. So what does that mean? It means there are fewer job opportunities out there. Now remember, JOLTS data lags the BLS jobs report by one month. But when you put them together, you paint a picture of a low-fire, low-hire environment. The data keeps coming back to that. Based on this latest JOLTS report, that seems to be a trend that's only accelerating. There's another report. It's put out by this firm called Challenger Gray and Christmas. This report tracks job cuts. So you see the subtle differences. BLS and ADP track how many people are employed, ADP tracking the private sector specifically, and BLS taking a more comprehensive view.

7:28So BLS and ADP are how many people have jobs. JOLTS is how many job openings are there. And Challenger Gray, how many job cuts are there. And according to the Challenger Gray report, employers in the U.S. cut over 60 ,000 jobs in the month of March. And that is an increase of 25 % above the 48 ,000 jobs that got cut in February. There is good news, though, because that's down from the 275 ,000 cuts announced during the same month last year. But those cuts, same month last year, those were a reflection of that wave of big federal layoffs that happened in February and March of last year. So the cuts last year were mostly government jobs as well as some retail and technology.

8:15whereas this year it's also technology but transportation and, interestingly, a little bit of healthcare. I say that's interesting because if you've listened to these First Friday reports, you see that the healthcare sector tends to be where job growth happens. Now, a big slice of the layoffs are happening in tech. Tech announced 18 ,720 job cuts in the month of March. So about one-third of the total job cuts in March were from the tech sector. A big chunk of that came from a workforce reduction at Dell. But then also Oracle started reporting layoffs late in the month, but they haven't released a total figure yet.

8:54And Meta is undergoing layoffs in one of its divisions, its Reality Labs division. So tech has the most layoffs. The second most layoffs comes from transportation. The Challenger Gray report notes that, quote, quote, transportation industries, including airlines and shipping, will likely be squeezed by an ongoing war in Iran, end quote. The report goes on to say that the cuts that we've seen in transportation in Q1 of 2026 are the highest within the transportation sector. They're the highest cuts within that sector on record. Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not those jobs will come back later in the year.

9:35Now, that said, if you want to turn to the good news, the Challenger Report also talks about hiring, and Automotive leads all of the industries in hiring plans in 2026. Automotive has announced hiring plans of around 12 ,000 people, followed by entertainment and leisure, another 8 ,000 people. Also around one in five job openings that were announced last month are seasonal summer jobs. So far this year, employers have announced plans to hire 50 ,000 workers, and that is down just slightly, 6 % from the 53 ,000 new hires that were announced during that same period in 2025. So some cautious optimism.

10:15Switching gears, the Fed had a meeting March 17 and 18, and they did exactly what everyone expected them to do, which is they maintained the same interest rate that they've had for a while now. They've maintained the federal funds rate at a target range of between 3.5 % to 3.75%. That is the second consecutive Fed meeting without a rate change. And a lot of analysts, Fed watchers, investors are anticipating that across the eight Fed meetings that we're going to have in 2026, a lot of Fed watchers are anticipating only one rate cut. The reason for that? High inflation and inflationary concerns.

10:58The Fed released a statement in which they talked about managing persistent inflation. They noted that for the last five years, we've been above the Fed's 2 % target. Fed Chair Jerome Powell talked about how inflation has not come down as quickly as they had hoped, and that warrants a, quote, wait and see approach, end quote. So the Fed did raise their GDP forecast, the GDP that they had been projecting for this upcoming year. It had been 2.3 percent. They raised it a smidge, up to 2.4 percent. They also, however, in addition to raising the GDP growth forecast, they also raised their inflation projections up to 2.7 percent.

11:40Now, their next meeting is scheduled for the end of April, April 28, 29. So at the next first Friday, I'll be able to tell you what they decided at that meeting. But as of right now, everyone's expecting that they will continue to hold rates steady. As I mentioned, the Fed meets eight times a year. They meet in six-week increments. Now, of course, we can't talk about the Fed without talking about mortgage rates. I should note, by the way, just for an insight into how things work, the Fed technically does not set mortgage rates. They set the federal funds rate, which is the rate at which banks can lend money to other banks overnight.

12:20But that federal funds rate, the overnight bank lending rate, influences the 10-year treasury, and the 10-year treasury heavily influences mortgage rates. So that's the cause and effect cycle. That's another way of saying while the Fed doesn't directly set mortgage rates, they highly influence it by virtue of influencing the 10-year treasury. According to Bankrate, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage climbed this week. It's now at 6.44%. It's been at or above 6 % all year, hovering in the low to mid 6 % range. Right now in particular, it is climbing because of inflation fears related to oil shocks, related to the cost of fuel.

13:08Because generally when people are worried about inflation, that's when the 10-year treasury tends to rise. Typically mortgage rates are a spread of about 2 to 3 percentage points above the treasury yield. So if the treasury yield is above 4%, then mortgage rates are going to be above 6%. As of a couple days ago, the 10-year treasury was yielding 4.32%, which is why you're seeing mortgage rates in the mid-sixes. By the way, if you're wondering why the 10-year tends to influence mortgage rates so much, so just take a step back and think about it from the point of view of an investor. Imagine that you're going to make a loan to somebody for 30 years.

13:53That's a long-duration loan. And there's some risk associated with it, although that loan is secured by a piece of collateral, the collateral being the home. So it's a secured risk, but it's a long-duration risk, right? That's what you're thinking about when you're thinking about giving a mortgage to someone. Now, when you're thinking about a 10-year treasury, the treasury is backed by the federal government, which is pretty secure, right? There are other governments that have collapsed. I mean, that's not out of the realm of possibility. But for the U.S. government, the U.S. is stable enough that if our government were to collapse, that would be globally catastrophic and we'd all have much bigger problems.

14:34It would be in no way comparable to, let's say the government of Nepal collapsing, that would present localized problems, but it wouldn't have the same kind of global ramifications, right? So the U.S. is an incredibly strong, it's the strongest nation in terms of how much faith we have in the credit of the U.S. government. So if we are giving a loan to the U.S. government, there is relatively low risk. And if it's a 10-year, then it's a low-risk, long-duration loan. And so you think about how that's comparable, right? A 30-year mortgage is, because it's secured by the property, a 30-year mortgage is a low-risk, long-duration loan.

15:17And a 10-year treasury is also a low-risk, long-duration loan. And if you're sitting here thinking, well, wait a minute, how are you comparing 10 years to 30 years? That doesn't make sense. What we know from history is that the average lifespan of a U.S. mortgage is between seven to 10 years. Around that timeframe, people generally tend to sell their homes or refinance. In other words, what we know is that the realistic holding period in aggregate, your experience may vary, but in aggregate, the realistic holding period is around seven to 10 years. The other thing about 10-year treasuries is that they're fairly liquid.

15:56That's why treasury yields are moving around all the time in response to real-time events. And because of that liquidity, it can serve as a global benchmark. So all of that is context to say investors are worried about inflation. Therefore, 10-year treasury yields are high. Therefore, mortgage rates are high. And for as long as we're worried about inflation, it looks like it's going to stay that way for a while. So when you're setting expectations as to what's likely going to happen in the rest of 2026, more of this is likely to be the answer, at least as far as we can tell at this current moment in time.

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21:07Welcome back. Okay, let's talk gas prices. As of the end of the day on Wednesday, U.S. oil futures were above$100 a barrel. Overall, oil futures rose by 51 % in March. That is the largest one-month gain since oil futures started trading back in 1983, and it is the largest percentage gain since May of 2020, when prices began coming back after the height of the COVID lockdown. What that means for you is that gas prices in the U.S. are, in many places, above$4 a gallon. Diesel is around$5.50 a gallon. This is the highest price since the summer of 2022. Back then, Russia's invasion of Ukraine shocked energy markets and led to$4 a gallon gas.

22:01Since then, gas prices came down significantly. In fact, in December 2025, January 2026, we were at the lowest gas prices that we had been at in four years. So as of early 2026, we had the lowest gas prices since the pandemic. Remember, gas prices hit for a while. They hit a real low during the pandemic back when no one was driving, no one was flying other than essential workers. In early 2026, we were at record low gas prices that mirrored that time. Of course, now in a one-month shock that happened across the month of March, we went from record lows to shocking highs. 20 % of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

22:49However, there are many oil analysts who say that high fuel prices might persist even after normal tanker traffic resumes. High gas prices don't just have the direct effect on what you pay at the pump. It also affects every other market, ranging from fertilizer to metals like aluminum to, of course, airlines. It impacts manufacturing. It impacts every sector of the economy. So when we ask the question, how is this going to affect the economy? Well, we, We, of course, never know the future, but we do know what has happened in the past, so we can look to history for some clues. Back in June of 2022, again, when we had that spike when Russia invaded Ukraine, gas actually went up as high as$5 a gallon in some areas.

23:39If you adjust that for inflation, because think about the high inflation that's happened between 2022 and now, in today's dollars, that is the equivalent of$5.56 per gallon today. So gas prices in the summer of 2022 were worse. And what we saw at least at that time was it did not have a major impact on consumer spending. We also have an example from June of 2008 when gas prices in inflation-adjusted dollars reached what in today's dollars is the equivalent of$6.19 a gallon. Part of the reason that it didn't have major impacts on consumer spending is because total household spending on gasoline and other motor fuels is a fairly small percentage of overall household spending.

24:32So last year, consumer spending on gasoline and motor fuels was 1.5 % of personal income, according to stats from the Commerce Department. Compare that to 2008 when it was 2.8%. So it's dropped by half, almost half. Now, that being said, as we've seen through a lot of these First Friday episodes, there's a difference between consumer sentiment and consumer behavior. So even if consumer behavior doesn't change, it does adversely affect sentiment because people don't tend to stand at the gas pump and think, well, in inflation-adjusted dollars, it was worse in 2008. Like, no one thinks that. And when you're standing at the pump in particular, you have nothing else to do.

25:14At the moment that you're fueling your gas tank, there's nothing else for you to do other than just stand there and watch that number go up. So there's a certain viscerality. There's a certain emotional experience. When you feel that number go up, you get that experience at the tank. You don't get that when you're buying homeowner's insurance. those prices might go up too. That might actually take a bigger chunk out of your overall yearly spending, but you don't feel it as much. It's not as visceral. The other piece of it is that gas is something that you purchase frequently. So if you were to study inflation, inflation is comprised of all of the things that a household might buy, things that you buy frequently as well as things that you buy infrequently.

26:01So you buy a dishwasher or a refrigerator infrequently, those prices might spike, but you don't feel it as much because you only buy those things once every 10 years. So what this means, again, it's a case for cautious optimism. Gas prices are high. This is the highest they've been since the summer of 2022. They also spiked very quickly, which meant people didn't get much time to adjust. By the way, the other recent time that that happened was after Hurricane Katrina in September of 2005. If you adjust for inflation, this is the largest five-week increase since Hurricane Katrina disrupted fuel supplies.

26:42Prices are high. They spiked fast. But what we have seen in recent history is that that has not led to a major decrease in consumer spending, which is the primary engine of the U.S. economy. So while I say there's a case for cautious optimism, again, because there are inflation worries, given that high gas prices makes everything more expensive, while there are inflation worries, there is not a worry of GDP going down. In fact, like I mentioned earlier, the Fed predicts the GDP is going to go up. Consumers are still going to spend, at least if modern day reflects what has happened in previous instances in the past.

27:27So again, cautious optimism. Speaking of which, the stock market, we've seen a lot of volatility, particularly over the last five weeks. I wrote about this in my newsletter, which I sent out a newsletter on Monday. Started a new thing called Three Things Monday, where every Monday I send out three things. And the first thing that I talked about was the market. So over the last five weeks, we've seen an enormous amount of market volatility. And the thing to remember when you look at market volatility is that the market consists of players with different timelines. If you are a trader who operates in increments of seconds or minutes or hours, you're going to have an incredibly different investment thesis than someone who operates in weeks or months or quarters.

28:18and then those people are going to have, people who think in months or quarters are going to have a very different investment thesis than people who think in years or decades. And if you listen to this podcast, if you are an afforder, then my hope for you is that you think in years and decades, not in months or quarters. And the risk that you face, Morgan Housel talks about this, where people often go wrong is they take their cues from players who are playing a different game. People who are playing the long-term game take their cues from players who are playing the short-term game. And when you're absorbing cues that are mismatched to your timeline and your goals, you often end up making the wrong choice.

29:06That's a way of saying if you're a long-term investor, and I hope you are, meaning that you think in decades, don't take your cues from the people who are thinking in days, months, quarters. Those two cohorts are going to have entirely different strategies, different sets of concerns. And if you're in the long-term cohort, there is lots of reason to be bullish. The fundamentals around innovation, around technological advancements, around AI, around productivity gains, those fundamentals have not changed. So yeah, there's short-term volatility. If you're a trader who operates in weeks, that matters.