KEY DRIVERS BEHIND MARCH’S STRONG HIRING
March logs the 39th straight month of job gains. Employment growth reached a 10-month high in March as 303,000 positions were added, while the unemployment rate adjusted down to 3.8 percent. Hiring was most prominent in health care, government, construction, and leisure and hospitality. Additions in health care and leisure and hospitality, in particular, should help ease staffing shortages in these sectors further. Immigration has also been a significant contributor to the stronger-than-expected labor market over the last year. This factor can be difficult to measure and predict, but the unemployment rate among foreign-born residents sank to 3.6 percent in March.
Office properties benefit from government hiring. Government roles accounted for nearly one-fourth of all jobs added last month as the sector hired 71,000. The segment’s employment growth surpassed its monthly average gain over the past 12 months by roughly 17,000 jobs, bolstered by hiring in the local government non-education segments. Working from home has become less prevalent in government roles, with the SWAA reporting that most of these employees work an average of just 1.3 days from home per week. The private sector still accounts for most of the nation’s office usage, but office space in metros like Washington, D.C., Sacramento and Norfolk-Virginia Beach, where government roles make up roughly 20 percent or more of the local workforce, could benefit the most from this trend. Stricter attendance policies and local and state agencies opting to lease space rather than own could also aid these assets.
Restaurant operators welcome the reversal of pandemic job losses. The 49,000 new roles in March brought the total leisure and hospitality job count up to 16.9 million, just above the February 2020 benchmark. Restaurants and bars brought on 28,300 staff as consumers exhibit a willingness to eat out despite rising prices. These establishments registered a 1.8 percent increase in annual sales, even after factoring in inflation in the segment. This is positively impacting property performance as the retail sector exited 2023 with record-low vacancy of 4.5 percent. The metric is likely to stay low in the coming year as operators expand their businesses. Restaurant chains like Taco Bell, Shake Shack and Del Taco all opened dozens of locations last year and plan to carry that growth into 2024. Jack in the Box announced new locations outside of the franchise’s traditional western locations.
Sources: Marcus & Millichap Research Services; Bureau of Labor Statistics; CoStar Group, Inc.; CME Group; Federal Reserve; Moody’s Analytics; Real Capital Analytics; Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA)