The U.S. labor market bounced back in March, with job creation much stronger than expected though the broader picture of a slow-growth labor market held intact.

Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 178,000 during the month, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 59,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. February’s number was revised down by 41,000 while January was revised up by 34,000 to 160,000, putting the three-month average around 68,000.

With job creation higher, the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%.

As has been the case, health care was responsible for much of the growth, with the sector adding 76,000. A strike at health-care provider Kaiser Permanente in February hit the sector. The BLS said ambulatory health care services rose by 54,000, with 35,000 coming from the strike workers returning.

Construction saw an increase of 26,000, while transportation and warehousing posted a gain of 21,000.

On the downside, the federal government saw a loss of 18,000, while financial activities lost 15,000.

Though the unemployment rate posted a decline, the move largely came from a decline of 396,000 in the labor force. The share of working-age Americans in the labor force fell to 61.9%, its lowest since November 2021.

The survey of households, which is used to compute the unemployment rate, showed 64,000 fewer people holding jobs. An alternative unemployment figure that counts discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons edged up to 8%.

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Nonfarm payrolls are expected to bounce back — barely — in March as the bar keeps getting lower for what constitutes a healthy labor market.

The U.S. economy is projected to show job gains of 59,000 for the month, an anemic rate by the standards of previous years this decade but enough to keep the unemployment rate at 4.4%.

If the estimate is reasonably accurate, it actually would represent above-trend job growth for a labor market that has created virtually no jobs over the past year.

Immigration restrictions, shifting demographics and geopolitical uncertainty have left companies eager neither to hire nor fire workers en masse, resulting in a static labor market and a series of ho-hum monthly counts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS will release the number Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, though the stock market will be closed in observance of the Good Friday holiday.

“We have to revise our idea of what a good or bad job number is,” said Guy Berger, chief economist at Homebase, which provides workforce management services for small businesses.

A report like February’s showing job losses “would have been raising alarm bells about the state of the labor market,” he added. “Now we’re like, yeah, that was a very bad report, but it doesn’t freak anybody out about the job market. I didn’t look at that report and say, wow, we’re on the verge of tipping into recession.”

Echoing views expressed by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other central bankers, Berger said he’s more focused on the unemployment rate as a gauge of labor market stability.

In a recent report, the St. Louis Fed updated previous research on the breakeven level for job growth. The bank’s economists now think that number could be as low as 15,000, with a high end of 87,000.

That’s a steep drop from an estimate as recent as April 2025 that showed the breakeven level at 153,000, and an update in August of that year putting the number between 32,000 to 82,000.

In other words, the labor market needs nowhere near the job growth it required previously to keep the population near full employment.

“Things have been slowly getting worse each for the last few years,” Berger said, but added, “There’s no real sign of us tipping into a recession.”

Some economists on Wall Street disagree. Goldman Sachs, Moody’s Analytics and others in recent days have raised their odds of recession in the next 12 months, with a focus on threats from a slowing jobs picture and surging energy costs.

Earlier this week, BLS data showed that the rate of hiring as a share of the workforce fell to 3.1%, its lowest level since the Covid recession in 2020 and, before that, January 2011.

Still, Homebase’s data is consistent with other indicators, including the ADP private payrolls report for March, showing modest gains in payrolls. February’s loss of 92,000 jobs came in part due to a since-resolved strike at health-care provider Kaiser Permanente that sidelined some 31,000 workers in California and Hawaii.

The Wegovy pill showed more pronounced weight loss and less cumbersome side effects than Eli Lilly‘s rival pill that was approved this week, Novo Nordisk said Thursday. 

Oral Wegovy demonstrated “significantly greater mean weight loss” than orforglipron, which Lilly will sell under the brand name Foundayo from next week, in an indirect study that compared the outcomes of other studies.

Novo’s findings evaluated previously published studies of the medicines and did not include any fresh data points. It will present further details of the study at the Obesity Medicine Association’s annual conference next week, the Danish drugmaker said.

A separate analysis suggested that 84% of patients favored a drug profile similar to that of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic, to that of Foundayo, Novo said. 

“These studies add to the growing body of evidence supporting the clinical strength of semaglutide and highlight attributes that patients value when choosing an obesity medicine that fits their lifestyle,” said newly-appointed Jamey Millar, executive vice president for U.S. operations. 

It comes as Novo and Lilly are both trying to shape the narrative of their respective pills, which is broadly considered to be the start of the next phase of the weight-loss drug era. The introduction of pills as an alternative to injections is expected to scale the market, as they are more easily distributed worldwide and favored by consumers. 

Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks told CNBC this week that Foundayo is more accessible and can more easily be fitted into daily routines. 

Novo said Thursday that the latest findings suggest that the Wegovy pill can offer differentiation, which has become an important consideration as the anti-obesity space looks set to become increasingly competitive over the next few years. Hopeful market entrants are narrowing in on obesity-related diseases, weight maintenance, and better side-effect profiles. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday backed a two-track plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security, paving the way to fund the Transportation Security Administration in the near-term while punting debate over the agency’s more controversial immigration enforcement functions. 

The announcement amounts to a reversion back to the bill the Senate passed last week that would have funded all of DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection. Democrats have called for changes to immigration enforcement practices before funding those sub-agencies.

Initial DHS funding for most of the department would be followed by a second measure using a Senate procedure known as budget reconciliation for ICE And CBP, the Republican leaders said Wednesday in a joint statement. Used only for spending-related measures, that process allows the Senate to approve with a simple minority, as opposed to the 60-votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” Thune and Johnson said in the statement.

Congress is in the first week of a two-week recess and is not due to return until April 13. DHS has been shut down since February, after federal agents killed to U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of an immigration crackdown. Democrats have refused to fund the agency until changes to DHS’s immigration enforcement policies are implemented.

Thune and Johnson’s joint statement came after the House GOP revolted on Friday and killed the Senate plan.

Rather than take a vote on the Senate DHS bill that advanced early Friday morning, Johnson announced a plan to pass a stopgap spending measure that would fund all of the agency at its current levels through May 22. That continuing resolution passed 213-203, with three Democrats joining all Republicans in support.

Johnson’s strategy guaranteed the extension of the shutdown that had disrupted air travel across the country, as unpaid TSA agents called out of work and quit in large numbers, ramping up pressure on lawmakers to reach an agreement ahead of heavy travel for the Passover and Easter holidays in early April.

But Congress got some cover from President Donald Trump, who announced last week he would draw from unspent funds from the 2025 Republican tax and spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to pay TSA agents. Those agents began to receive paychecks, and the lines at airport security appeared to ease this week.

Trump earlier Wednesday appeared to back a two-track approach in a post to Truth Social, calling on Congress to get bill to his desk by June 1 using the budget reconciliation process.

“(W)e are going forward to fund our incredible ICE Agents and Border Patrol through a process that doesn’t need Radical Left Democrat votes, and bypasses the Senate Filibuster (which should be repealed, IMMEDIATELY!), working in close conjunction with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader John Thune,” Trump posted. “We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us.”

The consensus from Republican leaders could signal the end of the partial government shutdown, but budget reconciliation can be a long and arduous process.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has said he has already begun work on reconciliation and would strive to meet the June 1 deadline.

“This bill will focus on ensuring ICE and other vital functions of homeland security, as well as the U.S. military and efforts to increase voter integrity, are Democrat-resistance proof. I will be working closely with @POTUS and his team in writing this bill,” Graham posted to X on March 26.

But Congress will have to do the hard work of deciding which GOP priorities make it into the final package. Lawmakers have floated a grab bag of proposals that extend well beyond funding for ICE and border patrol, including supplemental funds for the Iran war and a Trump-backed voter identification and noncitizen voting bill. If more things get added, it could complicate the chances of the Senate parliamentarian allowing a simple-majority vote to approve a measure.

“In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited,” Thune and Johnson wrote Wednesday.

President Donald Trump plans to be at the Supreme Court on Wednesday for oral arguments on whether an executive order of his can upend what has long been the constitutional guarantee of citizenship for people born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

Trump would be the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court arguments.

The White House on Tuesday evening issued Trump’s daily schedule for Wednesday, which included him attending the arguments in the birthright citizenship case known as Trump v. Barbara.

“I’m going,” Trump told reporters Tuesday at the White House.

If Trump’s executive order is upheld, it would leave tens of thousands of babies born in the U.S. each month to undocumented immigrants or visitors without American citizenship.

Trump, in his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, signed an executive order saying that 30 days after its effective date, babies born in the U.S. were not entitled to be issued citizenship documents if their parents were illegal immigrants or undocumented workers.

The order contradicted what has, for more than 150 years, been the legal interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as giving automatic citizenship to babies born in the country, regardless of their parents’ status.

That amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Several federal district court judges ruled that Trump’s order violated the Constitution. And two federal circuit courts of appeal upheld injunctions blocking the order from taking effect.

Novo Nordisk rose as much as 4% after England’s drug price regulator recommended the use of its best-selling drug Wegovy to prevent heart attacks and strokes.

Wegovy is mainly a weight loss treatment but it is also approved for reducing the risk of major cardiovascular events in people living with overweight or obesity.

The new recommendation the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), England’s drug price regulator, will significantly expand access to Wegovy on the country’s National Health Service (NHS).

The regulator, which assesses a medicine’s cost-effectiveness, recommended semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic, as an option for adults who have previously had a heart attack, a stroke, or a serious circulation problem in the legs and who have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 27.

Novo’s Copenhagen-listed shares were last seen up 2% in morning trading, paring some earlier gains. The pan-European blue-chip index Stoxx 600 was up 2.1%.

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Bank of America has agreed to pay victims of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein $72.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the bank facilitated his sex trafficking operation, a New York federal court filing showed Friday evening.

The settlement, in which BoA did not admit wrongdoing, is the fourth settlement by a major bank of legal claims by Epstein victims or a government entity alleging they effectively abetted his trafficking while he was a customer. The settlement with BoA must be approved by U.S. District Court in Manhattan Judge Jed Rakoff; such approval is typically granted.

The settlement would pay “all women who were sexually abused or trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, or by any person who is connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein or any Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking venture, between June 30, 2008 and July 6, 2019, inclusive,” according to the filing.

Lawyers in the case are “aware that there are at least 60 women who were victimized by Epstein between” those dates, the filing said.

A Bank of America spokesman, in a statement, said, “While we stand by our prior ​statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate ⁠sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs.”

CNBC has requested comment from the two law firms that represented the victims in the suit filed in October 2025, Boies Schiller Flexner and Edwards Henderson.

Deutsche Bank, however, at the time of its settlement, said, “We acknowledge our error onboarding Epstein in 2013, and the weaknesses in our processes, and have learnt from our mistakes and our shortcomings.”

Those three prior lawsuits, like the current one against BoA, were filed in Manhattan federal court.

The Senate early Friday morning advanced a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, in a move to end the partial government shutdown that has disrupted air travel across the U.S.

After weeks of Republicans fighting Democrats on their calls to remove funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement from any potential deal, the bill does exactly that. It would fund all of DHS except for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection, though it does not include the changes to ICE’s immigration enforcement practices that Democrats had demanded.

It now moves to the House for final approval. A vote could be held as soon as Friday as lawmakers seek to leave Washington for a scheduled recess.

“This could’ve been accomplished weeks ago if Republicans hadn’t stood in the way,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said from the Senate floor Friday. “Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms, and we will continue to fight for those reforms.”

The Senate vote is an encouraging step toward ending the shutdown, which resulted in missed paychecks for Transportation Security Administration agents and long lines at airports. The deal comes just in time for lawmakers to leave town for a pre-planned two-week recess beginning at the end of this week.

Lawmakers scrambled much of the week to strike a deal before the recess, but as talks broke down late Thursday, Trump intervened and announced via Truth Social that he would pay TSA agents via executive order.

“Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!,” Trump posted. “Therefore, I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports.”

The shutdown began in February in the weeks after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of a federal immigration crackdown. Democrats demanded change with ICE and DHS more broadly and refused to fund the department.

Friday’s vote largely ends that impasse, though it was far from a kumbaya moment.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement that Democrats “remained intransigent and unreasonable” in their DHS funding demands.

“Congressional Democrats have done real damage to the appropriations process by repeatedly forcing government shutdowns and refusing to fund entire agencies,” Collins said. “Their refusal to fund ICE and Border Patrol leaves our borders and our country less secure and sets a precedent that they may one day come to regret.”

Republicans have vowed to restore funding to ICE via a second party-line legislative package using the Senate “budget reconciliation” procedure they used to pass last year’s tax and spending bill. Republicans’ next measure with ICE funding may also include a grab-bag of other issues, including defense funding and the SAVE America Act, a Trump-backed voter-ID and noncitizen voting bill that has captivated the right-flank of the GOP in recent months.

“This bill will focus on ensuring ICE and other vital functions of homeland security, as well as the U.S. military and efforts to increase voter integrity, are Democrat-resistance proof,” Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a post to X on Thursday.

Budget reconciliation is a procedural tool that requires only a simple majority to pass — as opposed to the 60 votes usually required to overcome a filibuster in the Senate — provided its components have some spending or revenue impact.

President Donald Trump at a cabinet meeting Thursday urged Congress to find a quick resolution to the Department of Homeland Security shutdown that’s leading to increasing headaches for air travelers.

“They need to end the shutdown immediately, or we’ll have to take some very drastic measures,” Trump said from the White House.

He didn’t describe what measures he would take or detail his role in negotiations to resume funding DHS.

The DHS shutdown has dragged on for more than a month and has disrupted air travel. Transportation Security Administration agents are going without pay and are missing work in large numbers, leading to long lines at airports and increased pressure on lawmakers to find a deal, though they appear to be at an impasse.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on Thursday that Democrats were in receipt of Republicans’ “last and final offer,” according to MS NOW. Thune declined to provide details of the latest offer, but said the White House had “been involved on the back and forth that has occurred overnight.”

A group of Senate Republicans met with Trump at the White House of Monday and came out with what they heralded as a compromise proposal: funding for 94% of DHS, except for the enforcement and removal arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But Democrats — who have withheld their support for funding the agency since February, not long after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown — dismissed the proposal because it did not contain the ICE operational changes they had long sought. Those changes include requiring immigration agents to acquire judicial warrants before entering private property and banning the use of masks.

Republicans roundly rejected a Senate Democratic counteroffer on Wednesday that included some of those proposals.

In addition to extending the shutdown, the negotiations standoff raises the specter of cutting into a scheduled two-week recess that was supposed to begin at the end of this week. Thune told reporters Wednesday that it was an “open-question” whether lawmakers would be able to leave town as planned.

The White House signaled on background earlier this week that it was on board with the GOP plan to reopen DHS, but Trump has so far not publicly thrown his weight behind the proposal.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration sent ICE agents to airports to assist TSA. Trump on Wednesday suggested he may also deploy National Guard members to airports for additional help.

— Emily Wilkins contributed to this story.

President Donald Trump said he’s considering sending the National Guard to U.S. airports, two days after the administration sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to several major U.S. airports following hourslong waits for travelers because of the partial government shutdown.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump blamed Democrats for the shutdown, which began Feb. 14.

“Thank you to our great ICE Patriots for helping. It makes a big difference,” he wrote in his post. “I may call up the National Guard for more help.”

More than 11% of TSA officers called out on Wednesday and more than 450 have quit since the shutdown started, the Department of Homeland Security said.

Elevated absences of Transportation Security Administration officers, who are required to work though they’re not getting paid during the shutdown, have contributed to long lines at major U.S. airports, including in Atlanta, Houston and New York.

DHS, which oversees both ICE and and TSA, said the ICE agents will “support airports facing the greatest strain” but the department didn’t respond to requests for comment on what the ICE agents’ duties are. ICE agents are getting paid in the shutdown.

Airlines have been warning customers about potentially long security lines, while executives grow increasingly frustrated with lawmakers about the impasse. On Tuesday, Delta Air Lines said it suspended its airport escorts and other special services for members of Congress and their staff because of the ongoing partial shutdown of the DHS.

The shutdown comes as Democrats in Congress have demanded changes to how federal immigration enforcement operates in exchange for releasing DHS funding after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by ICE officers in Minneapolis.