Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Courtenay Brown/Axios

The economy has spent much of the past year lurching between job gains and losses. Call it the yo-yo job market.

Why it matters: For years, the labor market reliably added jobs every single month, even as hiring cooled.

The economy has entered a more volatile state, with March's blockbuster jobs report arriving in a more unsettling pattern of sharp gains followed by outright losses.

What they're saying: "Job growth has alternated from negative to positive every month since May of last year. ... All told, these dramatic swings in either direction have netted out to roughly zero growth over the past 12 months," Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, wrote.

Driving the news: The labor market added 178,000 jobs in March, a read of how hiring fared in the early weeks of the Iran war. Job gains were a snapback from a worse-than-initially-reported loss of 133,000 jobs in February.

Much of the headline strength was concentrated in health care, where workers returning from a strike that boosted sector hiring.
The sector extended its yearlong stretch of carrying the bulk of hiring last month, with 76,000 jobs added — or 43% of March's gains.
Construction and transportation added a combined 47,000 jobs, while federal government employment fell by another 18,000.

Yes, but: Hiring has been choppy, but the unemployment rate has been remarkably steady. The jobless rate has ebbed between a tight range of 4.2% and 4.5% over the past year.

In March, the unemployment rate slipped to 4.3% from 4.4%, though unrounded — 4.25% — the decline looks more dramatic.
A shrinking labor force accounted for the drop in the unemployment rate: Nearly 400,000 workers left the workforce in March.
The labor force participation rate among prime-age workers — those aged 25-54 — fell for the second month, to 83.8%, still historically high.

The big picture: The jobs market is caught between structural and cyclical forces pulling in different directions.

Companies are experimenting with AI technology, which might displace entry-level workers; President Trump's immigration crackdowns are thinning the labor supply; there's continued tariff uncertainty — and now an energy shock from the Iran war.
All of this has further entrenched the labor market into the "no hire, no fire" state that has benefited workers with jobs, but crushed those without (or looking for a new) one.

What to watch: Shifting labor market signals complicate the calculus among Federal Reserve officials, who are torn between upside risks to unemployment and inflation.

Signs of a steadying labor market give the Fed more reason to hold off on interest rate cuts, particularly as the Iran war presents new inflationary threats that the central bank hasn't decided whether it should look through.
The yield on the two-year Treasury note rose about 5 basis points after the employment report, suggesting that bond markets see less urgency for rate cuts.