America created 303,000 jobs in March - smashing expectations in boost to economy… but what does it mean for your 401(K)?

The US economy added 303,000 jobs in March, significantly higher than economist expectations of 200,000.

It was also higher than the 270,000 gain in February, signaling that a cut to record-high interest rates may still be far off.

In line with expectations, the unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent to 3.8 percent,  according to the government's March employment report.

Job gains occurred predominantly in health care and government, but also construction.

Manufacturing employment was unchanged after a downward revision to a loss of 10,000 jobs the month before.

Wall Street closely watches jobs numbers. It doesn't want unemployment to increase but it also doesn't want too many new jobs created as that can be an indicator inflation will rise.

If the Federal Reserve thinks inflation is still hot, it will slow down plans to cut interest rates. That has a knock-on effect on the stock market.

Higher rates are seen as negative to big companies, as it makes it more expensive for them to borrow money to invest - plus it also cuts consumer spending.

That can push stock prices down, which hits 401(K)s.

More than an hour after the report, both the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq were slightly up - by 0.5 and 0.7 percent respectively.

Wall Street did however push back its expectation of the first rate cut to later in the year.

It also reduced its expectation that there would be three rate cuts this year to 92 percent from 97 percent before the report.

Wage growth remained above inflation, with hourly earnings up 4.1 percent from a year ago, but was down from 4.3 percent last month.

The Fed has an inflation target of 2 percent, and that generally corresponds to wage growth of 3 to 3.5 percent.