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The state’s primary economic resource — its pool of available workers — expanded in March, recording the largest gain in 13 months as hiring showed signs of cooling off.
The labor force, the number of people with a job or looking for one, increased by 8,300 to 3.76 million, according to US Labor Department data released on Friday. In the previous 12 months, the state’s labor force was largely unchanged.
Employers added 1,900 jobs in March, down from an average gain of 7,000 jobs in the previous three months. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 2.9 percent, two-tenths of a percentage point above the state’s all-time low of 2.7 percent in October 2000. The US jobless rate in March, which was reported earlier this month, was 3.8 percent.
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It’s not unusual for people to enter or rejoin the labor market at the tail end of an economic expansion, when the job market is tight and wages have risen. This is especially true for people who previously struggled to find work. Drawing conclusions from one month of state-level data is risky, however, since the numbers are prone to more significant revisions than national data due to smaller sample sizes.
Over the past 12 months, the labor force participation rate of workers 25 to 54 years old, considered prime working age, averaged 85.6 percent, which was unchanged from February.
The state’s job gains last month were led by the education and health services sector, which added 2,400 workers, and the leisure and hospitality sector, which added 1,600 jobs. These industries also posted the largest employment gains over the past year as the state added 22,500 jobs.
Massachusetts is 5,600 jobs shy of its total employment in February 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic. Nationally, payrolls have exceeded pre-pandemic levels since the fall of 2022.
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Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.