US hiring surged in March, defying recession fears
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(NEW YORK) — U.S. hiring surged in March, blowing past economists’ expectations and defying concern on Wall Street about a possible economic recession, government data on Friday showed.
The fresh data offered news of an upsurge in employer activity as stocks suffered a second day of selloffs over sweeping new tariffs announced by President Donald Trump earlier this week.
The U.S. added 228,000 jobs in March, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure amounted to robust hiring and marked a major increase from 151,000 jobs added in the previous month.
The unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4.2%, but it remains historically low.
The uptick in hiring last month came despite staff cuts imposed by the federal government amid cost-cutting efforts undertaken by the Department of Government Efficiency.
Federal government employment declined by 4,000 jobs in March, following a dropoff of 11,000 jobs the previous month.
The job gains came primarily in health care, transportation and warehousing.
Average hourly wages climbed 3.8% over the year ending in March, indicating that pay increases outpaced the inflation rate over that period.
Despite escalating trade tensions and market turbulence since Trump took office in January, the economy remains in solid shape by several key measures.
The unemployment rate stands at a historically low level. Meanwhile, inflation sits well below a peak attained in 2022, though price increases register nearly a percentage point higher than the Fed’s goal of 2%.
“The economy is strong,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., last month.
Tariffs announced earlier this week, however, threaten to derail hiring and worsen inflation, multiple analysts previously told ABC News.
The far-reaching levies increase the likelihood of a recession by driving up prices, sapping consumer spending, slowing business activity and risking layoffs, they said.
The White House plans to slap a 10% tax on all imported products and place additional duties on items from some of the largest U.S. trading partners, including China and the European Union.
“These policies, if sustained, would likely push the U.S. and global economy into recession this year,” J.P. Morgan said in a note to clients after the tariff announcement.
“Recession risks will likely rise,” Deutsche Bank added.
U.S. stocks plunged on Thursday in the first trading session after Trump unveiled the new tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,679 points, or nearly 4%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined almost 6%.
The S&P 500 tumbled 4.8%, marking its worst trading day since 2020.
Hyundai vehicles on display at the New York International Auto Show on April 16, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — This weekend, consumers and auto enthusiasts will poke, prod and pepper brand specialists with questions about the latest vehicles on display at the Javits Center.
The annual New York International Auto Show, which officially opened to the public on Friday, is smaller and more condensed than previous years. There are still plenty of vehicles to check out up close, such as the 2026 Hyundai Palisade, Kia K4 Hatchback and EV4, plus Genesis, Toyota, Subaru and Volkswagen introduced new vehicles and concepts.
Of course, one overarching theme looms large: Will these new vehicles be subject to the Trump’s administration’s 25% industry tariff? Consumers went out in force last month to scoop up available cars, trucks and SUVs before prices inched higher, helping the industry report record sales. In fact, nearly 1.6 million vehicle units were purchased, marking a month-over-month increase of 29.6% and a year-over-year increase of 10.3%, according to Cox Automotive data.
What will happen to new vehicle prices this summer, when temporary pricing pauses announced by automakers disappear? And as uncertainty dominates, how will automakers — from mainstream to ultra luxe — respond?
ABC News spoke to various auto executives and industry watchers about the future of the industry. The conversations below have been edited for clarity and space.
Sean Gilpin, chief marketing officer, Hyundai Motor America
Hyundai is a very customer-centric brand, a people-centric brand. We just launched a campaign reminding customers that we’re not increasing MSRPs for the next 60 days (ending June 2). What we saw in the some of data and surveys is that customers don’t know how a tariff works but they know things will get more expensive potentially, so we wanted to get the message out there.
The June 2 date could be extended. The best medicine for our business is to keep selling cars. We think this message is resonating with customers. We’ve seen a big uptick in our shopping activity, in customers who are new to the brand and visiting the site for the first time. Dealer traffic is up.
We have a plant in Alabama. The Tucson, our best-selling vehicle, is built there. The Santa Fe is also built in the Alabama plant. We had a grand opening of our Metaplant near Savannah, Georgia, two weeks ago, and 300,000 vehicles will come off the line in phase one. Phase two will bring capacity to 500,000 vehicles. We’re continuing to invest here and grow in terms of our footprint. The U.S. is the No. 1 market for Hyundai. We also recently announced a commitment to build a steel plant in Louisiana.
Tony Quiroga, editor-in-chief, Car and Driver
The tariffs make everything a sort of unknown. I’ve been telling anyone who’s in the market in the next year to start shopping now. Inexpensive cars are going to get more expensive because so many are built outside of the U.S. Nissan builds the Kicks, Versa and Sentra in Mexico. Chevy builds the Trax in South Korea, which would be subject to be a big tariff. A lot people could be priced out of the market. If you’re in that market, you should definitely be considering buying a car now.
The tariff situation is unsettling and weird and everybody is just sort of wondering what’s going to happen and hoping for the best I think.
Vinay Shahani, senior vice president of U.S. marketing and sales, Nissan Americas
The market is healthy right now. There’s a lot of shopping, and a lot of cross-shopping, that’s happening. We feel really good about the activity out there.
We have plenty of on-ground inventory that’s protected from tariffs today. We’re very fortunate as a company that we have a very strong industrial footprint here in the U.S. Between Tennessee and Mississippi we produce a lot of vehicles that we sell here in the U.S. There are six models built in the U.S. between Nissan and Infiniti.
The Rogue is currently built at the Smyrna Assembly Plant in Tennessee as well as in Japan. Now we’re saying we’re going to increase the production of the Rogue in the U.S because it makes sense to do that and we can dial up production to deliver more U.S.-built Rogues. We’re also looking at subsequent new vehicles that we’re going to launch and saying, how can we optimize our footprint and bring as much as we can to the U.S.? It’s already happening — we’re moving production of the Rogue from Japan. The supply and manufacturing teams are already all over it.
Starting at the end of March, we started to see increased activity and it’s carried through for the month of April. We have basically said we’re holding our pricing between April and May. Then we will evaluate the situation after June 2. In this dynamic environment, where things are changing constantly, you can’t plan too far out.
Steven Center, chief operating officer, Kia America
Tariffs are a whole different kettle of fish as they say. Product cycles are long — they’re five, six, seven years or longer. Automakers have long planning horizons and you always want to have a shorter supply line as possible. We learned that during the pandemic. And you always want to build things closer to where you’re selling them.
To build a factory takes years of planning and execution. It’s very difficult to find a location for an auto plant. You need a lot of space, you need suppliers nearby, you need rail heads to bring in the materials. Most importantly you need a labor pool. And this country is in a state of zero unemployment. So where are you going to find people?
Erin Keating, executive analyst, Cox Automotive
Automakers have been fairly mute on tariffs — there haven’t been any big reveals on how they’re going to manage the cost. My advice: if you are in the market, and have been looking to buy a car, go to the dealer and buy one. If you’re just worried cars will get more expensive, wait it out. I wouldn’t rush ahead to make a decision — things could change.
There will be a grand redistribution of market share over the next few months. Whoever can capitalize on the frenzy of the consumer will win the day, at least in the second quarter. We’ve seen increased marketing from automakers and increased shopping behavior on Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. The lending environment is looser now than in the past. There is still pent-up demand in the market.
We saw a big sales jump in March and will see another in April. Sales though could peter out in May. Automakers are trying to hold pricing right now … though prices will increase to some degree across the board. At the dealer level, floor planning is not cheap. You don’t want to keep inventory on the lot for a long time. If inventory goes quickly, you will have to replenish.
Ford and Honda have relatively low exposure to the tariffs. Toyota also has a lot of strength in the U.S. market in terms of manufacturing.
Vehicle parts are the bigger component of the tariff challenge. It’s so difficult to move production to the U.S. Brands are impacted separately; it really comes down to specific models. Vehicles built in the U.S. will get hit with tariffs because of the componentry. The 25% steel and aluminum tariffs are also hitting automakers.
I stress to consumers that it’s good to be informed of what’s happening. There are things you can do, like vote with your wallet.
Mike Rocco, president and CEO, Bentley Americas
The U.S. is the largest market in the world for Bentley. In the luxury space your world revolves around building an order bank — making sure you have customers in the system. We’ve told our retailers to communicate to their clients that we will price protect all retail orders that are in the system. If you have a car coming — don’t worry about it, you’re protected. We also announced that in the month of April, any new orders that went into the system would be protected, not just the ones prior to the tariff.
We’re looking at pricing on a month-to-month basis. There’s a lot of fluidity and things are changing. We haven’t had any [vehicle order] cancellations. Our No. 1 priority is to protect our clients and to protect our retailers.
I was recently in Palm Beach and Naples, Florida, talking to 70-80 clients. The feeling I got from customers I spoke to was that they’d have to pay whatever the tariff is … everyone recognized that the tariff would eventually be passed on to the customer.
Andrea Soria, general manager, Maserati North America
We live day by day. We keep monitoring. We are currently not shipping cars from Italy. It’s a very fluid situation. Every day you have different news. If nothing changes we will need to make some decision. We cannot absorb the tariffs entirely. We hope there will be some negotiation coming, some solution, something that will be a little bit more reasonable.
I think everyone in the industry is trying to adjust the sales. My colleagues in Italy ask me every day [about the tariffs]. I say, I wish I had a better answer. Everyone is waiting right now. We protected all the orders that were in the system until April 4. We haven’t seen anyone walking away [from an order] so far.
Tyson Jominy, vice president of data & analytics, J.D. Power
The auto industry is probably uniquely positioned to absorb the tariffs because sourcing time frames in the industry are so long. It takes so long to pivot to new ideas.
It’s a completely global industry. Even companies that assemble the majority of their vehicles in the U.S. have parts coming in from overseas. Therefore, no one really is exempt from tariffs. We’ll likely see some vehicles go away and automakers could cut back on marketing and reduce R&D costs to reserve cash. There’s really little they can do in the short term … and they’re holding cards close to their chest. Everyone is super tight-lipped about their plans.
We saw the industry really take off at the end of March, when the tariffs kicked in the last week. March was one of the strongest months we’ve seen in four or five years. Some automakers may even set sales records in the first half of the year. We expect a very strong Q2 but could see volume losses in Q4 — we know we can’t continue at this pace.
The automakers locking in prices have higher inventory levels. An automaker would normally be skewered for having 100 days of supply on the ground, but that’s a huge asset right now and buys you time. The tariffs may go away and you can see what your competitors are doing.
Our analysis says vehicles will have an 11% additional cost on average, or just shy of $5,000 per unit. But only 5% of the cost will be passed on to the consumer on average, or $2,300 per unit. You can’t raise the price of a Hyundai Sonata by $7,000 for example — that would be the equivalent of pulling out of the segment. Automakers may see negative margins on certain vehicles.
Models like the Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz G-Class and Range Rover have true pricing power — customers won’t care [about a price increase].
I tell consumers not to rush out and buy a car. Ultimately making the right decision at a slightly more expensive purchase price would be the better decision for the long term.
(NEW YORK) — U.S. stocks were little changed in early trading on Tuesday, a day after President Donald Trump signaled a willingness to ease some tariffs but also impose new ones.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 52 points, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 climbed 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq increased 0.05%.
Trump’s administration said on Friday that many consumer electronics would be exempt from his wide-ranging reciprocal tariffs, an announcement that sent global markets higher on Monday.
Trump on Monday also signaled a willingness to further ease tariffs, saying he is looking to “help some of the car companies” in the aftermath of 25% auto levies.
The White House also took steps on Monday that may result in new tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, posting notices online about national security investigations into those products.
Markets in Europe also traded higher midday on Tuesday, after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s 90-day pause on planned tariff countermeasures went into effect.
Germany’s DAX climbed about 1.21% midday and Britain’s FTSE 100 traded up about 0.90% midday.
South Korea’s KOSPI index closed up 0.88% on Tuesday, posting its second day of gains. And Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.84%.
Markets in China, where Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are still in place, showed less enthusiasm. Shanghai’s Composite Index rose just 0.15% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 0.23%.
ABC News’ David Brennan contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has disrupted global trade and roiled markets in an effort to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Some of his top tech allies, however, have backed ventures that replace human workers with robots.
Elon Musk, a top donor and adviser to Trump, has touted humanoid robots as a future growth area for electric-carmaker Tesla. “You can produce any product,” Musk said of the robots’ potential capacity during a February interview with Dubai’s World Governments Summit.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who Trump last month called “terrific,” has invested in several advanced robotics firms.
Bezos last year poured funds into Figure, a humanoid robot company that says its initial rollout will focus on manufacturers and warehouses, among other business applications. “We believe humanoids will revolutionize a variety of industries,” the company says on its website.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman – both of whom joined Trump on his recent trip to the Middle East – helmed their respective companies as each invested in Figure. OpenAI ended its partnership with Figure last year.
“Trump is talking about bringing back the jobs, and he’s not understanding the tension between that goal and automation, which the tech bros have enthusiasm for,” Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, told ABC News. “There’s a fundamental conflict between those goals.”
Musk did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment made through Musk-owned firm SpaceX. Neither Bezos, Huang nor Altman responded to ABC News’ request.
Speaking at a conference in April, Huang said the onset of artificial intelligence would fuel “new types of factories,” which in turn would create jobs in construction and steelmaking, as well as in trades such as plumbing and electricity.
Even more, Huang said, AI is set to trigger a surge in productivity at companies that adopt the new technology, allowing them to add employees as the firms increase output and revenue.
“New jobs will be created, some jobs will be lost, every job will be changed,” Huang said. “Remember, it’s not AI that’s going to take your job. It’s not AI that’s going to destroy your company. It’s the company and the person who uses AI that’s going to take your job. And so that’s something to internalize.”
Even after a rollback of some levies, consumers face the highest overall average effective tariff rate since 1934, the Yale Budget Lab found earlier this month.
A key reason for the tariffs, White House officials say: Reshoring factories and rejuvenating employment in the manufacturing industry.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said this month in an interview with Fox News that Trump’s vision for ushering in a “golden age” for America involved enticing manufacturers to open factories and build in the United States.
“We’re going to have huge jobs in manufacturing. You’ve heard the president talk about trillions and trillions of factories being built in America,” he said in the interview on May 11.
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, White House Spokesperson Kush Desai said “the importance of President Trump’s push to reinvigorate American industry goes beyond creating good-paying jobs for everyday Americans.”
“Supply chain shocks of critical pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and semiconductors during the COVID era prove that America cannot rely on foreign imports. The Trump administration remains committed to reshoring manufacturing that’s critical to our national and economic security with a multifaceted approach of tariffs, tax cuts, rapid deregulation, and domestic energy production,” Desai added.
The share of U.S. workers in manufacturing has plummeted for decades. Roughly 8% of U.S. workers currently hold positions in manufacturing, which marks a steep decline from about a quarter of all employees as recently as 1970.
Researchers attribute such decline to overlapping trends, including the offshoring of manufacturing to low-wage markets overseas and the adoption of labor-saving technology throughout the sector.
Long before current advances, automation significantly increased productivity in U.S. factories, meaning the same number of workers could produce many more goods, researchers at Ball State University found in 2015. As a result, they said, manufacturing employment stagnated for decades even as output climbed.
“Automation is something we’ve seen for a long time,” Philipp Kircher, a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University, told ABC News.
Some of Trump’s tech allies have backed firms that seek to further automate manufacturing, touting a new wave of artificial-intelligence equipped robots as a replacement for some workers and salve for labor shortages.
Robotics outfit Vicarious boasts $250 million in investments from a set of backers that includes Bezos, Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg – all of whom flanked Trump during his inauguration.
On a webpage displaying photos of robots for use in warehouse settings, Vicarious tells potential clients that the products can “reduce both your costs and person-hour needs.”
In 2022, Vicarious was acquired by Alphabet-backed robotics software firm Intrinsic. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai also sat alongside tech leaders at Trump’s inauguration.
Alphabet did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. Meta declined to comment.
Yong Suk Lee, a professor of economics and technology at the University of Notre Dame, described the views on automation among Trump’s tech allies and some of his trade advisers as “opposed.”
The tech position, Lee said, would likely win out, even if some firms do open plants in the U.S.
“If you want to reshore, are you going to pay the same wages as Vietnam? Probably not,” Lee said. “Companies are faced with higher labor costs. In that case, they’ll probably automate.”
Discordant views among some tech leaders and White House officials surfaced in April, when Musk sharply criticized tariff-advocate Peter Navarro, Trump’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. Navarro, Musk said, is “truly a moron.”
In an interview with CNBC, Navarro responded, saying Musk “isn’t a car manufacturer — he’s a car assembler.”
To be sure, analysts said, automation in manufacturing would likely continue regardless of support from Trump’s tech allies, since producers are locked in a competition to lower costs and increase output. The precise outlook for manufacturing employment is unclear, they added, since additional technology may add jobs for those maintaining and optimizing the machinery.
“Whether it’s the companies that currently support the U.S. president or not, somebody would be doing this innovation, maybe slightly slower,” Kircher said.
Even at current employment levels, a labor shortage bedevils U.S. manufacturers. Roughly one of every five U.S. factories that failed to produce at full capacity cited a shortage of workers, Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, found in a January study analyzing government data.
Agility Robots, an Amazon-backed firm building humanoid robots, identifies the current push for rejuvenated U.S. manufacturing as an opportunity for greater adoption of technology.
“Manufacturing companies are seeing a massive reshoring movement spanning various industries,” Agility Robots says on its website. “Adding a humanoid robot to your manufacturing facility is a great way to stay on the leading edge of automation.”
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, an Amazon spokesperson pointed to previous remarks about robotics made by a company executive.
“Our goal is to ensure these systems improve safety and productivity. Technology should be used to help us retain and grow our talent through skill development and reimagining how we make our workplace better, both in productivity and safety. If we do this well, we’re certain to always innovate for our customers,” Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, said in a September blog post.
Amazon has “created more U.S. jobs in the last decade than any other company,” Amazon said this month.