Jobs report shows strong hiring in March, despite oil shock set off by Iran war
Job interview (Narisara Nami/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. recorded strong job gains in March, rebounding from dismal losses a month earlier, even as the nation weathered a global oil shock set off by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, a jobs report on Friday showed. The reading far exceeded economists’ expectations.
The U.S. added 178,000 jobs in March, according to the report, which marked a sharp increase from 133,000 jobs lost in the previous month.
The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3% in March from 4.4% in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.
As in previous months, the health care sector stood out as a top source of hiring in March, adding 76,000 jobs, the BLS said. The construction sector, as well as transportation and logistics, also contributed to the surge in hiring.
Employment in the federal government continued to decline in March, shedding 18,000 jobs, the BLS said. The federal government has lost 355,000 jobs, or nearly 12% of its workforce, since October 2024, a month before President Donald Trump took office.
The government data arrived as the war continues to drive up gasoline prices and borrowing costs, threatening a drag on the economy.
The U.S. added an average of about 15,000 jobs per month in 2025, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showed. That performance amounted to a sharp slowdown from 186,000 jobs added each month in 2024.
The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which began on Feb. 28, triggered one of the worst global oil shocks in decades, prompting gloomy forecasts on Wall Street of a potential U.S. recession over the coming months.
In theory, a prolonged oil shortage could drive up prices for a vast array of goods, sapping energy from consumer spending, which powers most of the nation’s economic growth.
Iran has mounted an effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime trading route that facilitates the transport of about one-fifth of the global oil supply.
The U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, meaning the country produces more oil than it consumes. But since oil prices are set on a global market, U.S. prices move in response to swings in worldwide supply and demand.
The disruption in oil shipping has pushed U.S. crude prices above $110 a barrel, which marks a staggering rise of more than 50% since the war began on Feb. 28.
Gasoline prices in the U.S. ticked up to $4.08 on average per gallon as of Wednesday, marking a leap of $1.09 over the past month, AAA data showed.
A potential jump in costs for additional goods delivered through the Strait of Hormuz — such as fertilizer and diesel fuel — could also raise prices beyond gasoline, putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates in an effort to quell possible inflation.
The benchmark interest rate stands at a level between 3.5% and 3.75%. That figure marks a significant drop from a recent peak attained in 2023, but borrowing costs remain well above a 0% rate established at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the Fed moved to raise interest rates, it would hike borrowing costs for many consumer and business loans, risking a slowdown in hiring.
Speaking at Harvard University on Monday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank could take a patient approach as it monitors potential price effects from the Middle East conflict.
“We feel like our policy is in a good place for us to wait and see how that turns out,” Powell said.
A large vinyl decal displaying the official circular logo of the European Parliament, along with the full blue and yellow starred flag of the European Union, is affixed to the glass curtain wall of the institution’s building in Brussels, Belgium, on December 16, 2025. Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — European lawmakers on Wednesday suspended a trade agreement with the United States over tariff threats issued by President Donald Trump as part of his push to acquire Greenland.
The announcement came minutes after President Donald Trump reasserted his call for U.S. ownership of Greenland during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The speech followed tariff threats issued by Trump days earlier against seven European Union countries, plus the U.K., over the issue.
European leaders, meanwhile, have pushed back on Trump’s ambitions. Greenland is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, a member of the EU.
Members of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) – a body within the European Parliament – hold “unshakable commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Denmark and Greenland,” European Parliament member Bernd Lange, an INTA chair on EU-US trade relations, said in a statement on Wednesday.
“By threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of an E.U. member state and by using tariffs as a coercive instrument, the U.S. is undermining the stability and predictability of EU-US trade relations,” Lange added.
The EU and US struck the trade agreement in July, moving to ratchet down tariffs on European goods and restore stability to the commercial relationship. At the time, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement “creates certainty in uncertain times.”
On Wednesday, Lange said the E.U. would pause the ratification process in response to Trump’s proposed tariffs. Under Trump’s plan, eight European nations – including Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom – will be slapped with 10% tariffs beginning on Feb. 1. Those levies are set to escalate to 25% on June 1, Trump said.
In his speech on Wednesday, Trump ruled out use of the military in his push for Greenland. “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that,” Trump said.
U.S. stocks slumped on Tuesday in response to the tariffs, with the Dow closing down 870 points, but recovered roughly half of those losses in a rally on Wednesday morning. In Europe, the pan-continental STOXX 600 index ticked slightly lower on Wednesday.
ABC News’ David Brennan contributed to this report.
A gas pump is seen in a vehicle on November 26, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the opportunity for U.S. companies to extract and sell oil from Venezuela, which holds the largest oil reserves in the world.
“We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump said on Saturday, just hours after a U.S. military attack removed Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuelan oil, however, will likely provide little relief for gas prices paid by Americans over the coming months, analysts told ABC News. They cited the relatively small amount of oil at stake in the near term and the glut of crude already flooding global markets.
A more substantial amount of oil could be accessed over the coming years, leading to a potentially noticeable decline in prices at the pump, they added. But that outcome remains uncertain, since oil companies face significant political and logistical hurdles in Venezuela, while wider market conditions could shift in the meantime.
“I would not expect to see a sharp drop because of this event,” Richard Joswick, head of near-term oil analysis at S&P Global Commodity Insights, told ABC News.
Oil executives are set to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela, a White House official confirmed to ABC News.
Venezuela boasts the biggest proven oil reserve of any country, amounting to roughly 303 billion barrels or about 17% of the world’s reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, a federal agency.
For decades, however, the nation has struggled to match those holdings with similarly stratospheric output due to lackluster infrastructure and government mismanagement.
Venezuela exported about 749,000 barrels per day last year, totaling less than 1% of global supply, according to data and analytics company Kpler.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Trump said Venezuela would hand over 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., which in turn would sell them at their market price. The resulting funds — as much as $2.8 billion at current prices — will “benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” Trump said.
Trump has not provided details about the timing of such sales.
The plan proposed Tuesday would likely have little or no effect on U.S. gasoline prices, analysts told ABC News. The amount of oil stipulated by Trump is relatively small, making up the equivalent of between one-third and half of the oil consumed worldwide in a single day, according to data compiled by the EIA.
“Short term, I don’t think we’ll see much of an impact,” Tucker Balch, a finance professor at Emory University, told ABC News. “It’s not a lot of oil right now.”
Even more, oil prices are hovering near their lowest levels since 2021, meaning it will prove difficult to bring prices down further anytime soon, analysts added. Low oil prices stem from a glut of oil alongside relatively slow global economic growth, which has constricted demand for fossil fuels.
“There’s an oversupply and weak demand. More crude won’t make a big difference in the overall price,” Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, told ABC News.
After the military operation, Trump outlined a long-term role for U.S. oil companies in Venezuela, saying the firms would spend money to improve the nation’s infrastructure and output.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure,” Trump said during a press conference on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
A U.S.-led effort to extract and sell the massive Venezuelan oil reserves could inject a substantial amount of oil into global markets and noticeably reduce gasoline prices, some analysts said.
Venezuelan oil production topped out at 3.5 million barrels per day in the 1990s, Kpler said. A return to that output would amount to about 4% of global oil supply, S&P’s Joswick, adding that the influx could push down gasoline prices.
“Prices are set on the margin and small imbalances in volume can lead to large shifts in prices,” Joswick said.
A long-term venture would encounter challenges, however, some analysts said.
The infrastructure necessary to ramp up oil production would require tens of billions of dollars of investment over several years, while oil companies involved in the effort would face political risks, according to analysts.
Chevron is currently the only U.S. oil firm operating in Venezuela, as part of a joint venture with the country’s state-owned oil outfit.
ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips stopped doing business in Venezuela in 2007, after former President Hugo Chavez nationalized the sector. Citing the unlawful seizure of assets belonging to the two oil giants, the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment ordered Venezuela to pay the firms billions of dollars. Venezuela has only paid a small share of the debt it owes to ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
The policy approach in Venezuela is uncertain over the coming years, while the same goes for the U.S. as a presidential election approaches in 2028, Krishnamoorti said.
“It’s unlikely the oil companies are going to take the bait to go after some significantly difficult oil to produce in a very uncertain U.S. policy and global policy situation,” Krishnamoorti added.
Joswick noted, however, that possible success in accessing Venezuelan oil over the next few years could be a “big incentive for the continuation of similar policies.”
While touting potential U.S. oil interests in Venezuela, the Trump administration has described the operation as a law enforcement function rather than a military attack.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are among six defendants named in a four-count superseding indictment that accused them of conspiring with violent, dangerous drug traffickers for the last 25 years. Maduro was indicted on related charges in 2020. He has long denied all the allegations, and he pleaded not guilty on Monday. Flores also pleaded not guilty.
So far, the major oil firms have yet to speak publicly about Trump’s plans.
In a previous statement to ABC News, ConocoPhillips said the firm is keeping tabs on the ongoing situation.
“ConocoPhillips is monitoring developments in Venezuela and their potential implications for global energy supply and stability. It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments,” the company said.
Chevron said it continues to focus on its current operations.
“Chevron remains focused on the safety and wellbeing of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets. We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations,” it said in a statement.
ExxonMobil did not respond to a request for comment.
Photo of Wall Street (Matteo Colombo/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Stocks tumbled in early trading on Tuesday as President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on multiple European countries as part of a push for U.S. control of Greenland.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 735 points, or 1.4%, while the S&P 500 declined 1.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 1.8%.
The selloff came in the first trading session since Trump announced the new tariffs in a social media post on Saturday.
Under the proposed plan, eight European nations — including Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — will be slapped with 10% tariffs beginning on Feb. 1. Those levies are set to escalate to 25% on June 1, Trump said.
“This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland,” Trump added.
Trump escalated the trade confrontation with Europe on Tuesday, threatening a 200% tariff on French wine if French President Emmanuel Macron opts to forego participation in Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” for Gaza.
Greenland is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Danish and Greenlandic politicians have repeatedly rebuffed such proposals.
European leaders, meanwhile, continued to push back on Trump’s ambitions and publicize their coordination efforts on the issue.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that she met with a bipartisan congressional delegation to discuss both Russia’s war in Ukraine and recent tensions around Greenland.
Von der Leyen said she “addressed the need to unequivocally respect the sovereignty of Greenland and of the Kingdom of Denmark. This is of utmost importance to our transatlantic relationship.”
Treasury yields jumped on Monday, suggesting possible concern about economic instability stemming from the confrontation between Trump and European nations.
Since bonds pay a given investor a fixed amount each year, the specter of inflation risks devaluing the asset and, in turn, makes bonds less attractive. When demand for U.S. treasuries falls, bond yields rise.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ David Brennan contributed to this report.
