And wages rose at a good clip too.

It was the kind of jobs report we’d expect from an economy that is plugging along just fine, at growth rates that are above the long-run average, powered by drunken sailors all around: By consumers outspending inflation with gusto, especially on services, by the government spending trillions it borrows hand-over-fist, and by businesses that are raking in big-fat inflation-fueled profits.

In March, 303,000 payroll jobs were created – excluding farm workers and the self-employed – by nonfarm employers, which was somehow a lot “better than expected,” after 270,000 jobs had been added in February, and 256,000 in January, according to the “Establishment” survey data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.

January’s data was revised up by 27,000 jobs, February’s was revised down by 5,000, for a net up-revision of 22,000 jobs. This brought the three-month average increases, which iron out the month-to-month squiggles, to 276,000 jobs, a rate of over 3 million jobs a year, which is a lot:

Folks can quibble with some of the details, but overall, it was fine – it has been fine every month for well over a year, exactly what you’d expect from an economy that’s plugging right along at a pace that is faster than we’ve come accustomed to over the past 15 years.

There is nothing in this jobs report – and we’ll get into the details in a moment – that indicates that the Fed should cut rates. The job market remains tight, wages are increasing at a good clip, and employment is growing at such a pace that inflation pressures emanate from it.

For the past 12 months, despite the interest rates that the Fed jacked up to 5.25%, nearly 3 million nonfarm payroll jobs have been added. Over the past three months, the pace accelerated to 3.3 million jobs a year annualized.  The total number of payroll jobs rose to a record 158.1 million:

Average hourly earnings rose in March at an annualized rate of 4.3%, also according to the survey of employers, to $34.69. Over the past three months – which irons out the month-to-month squiggles – average hourly earnings rose by 4.1% annualized:

Household data of the jobs report messed up by underestimated immigration.

The remaining parts of the jobs report are based on the BLS survey of households. The BLS applies the survey data to the overall population count in the US to come up with its figures of employment, unemployment, the labor force, labor force participation, unemployment rates, etc. The BLS uses the population data from the Census Bureau. But the Census Bureau’s formula has massively underestimated the recent historic surge in immigration……

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Continue reading this article at Wolf Street.