ISTANBUL

The US economy added 303,000 jobs in March, much higher than market estimates, the Labor Department said on Friday.

The market expectation for nonfarm payrolls was to show a gain of 212,000 last month.

Job additions for February, on the other hand, were revised down by 5,000, from 275,000 to 270,000.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell to 3.8% in March from 3.9% in February. The market estimate for the figure was to come in at 3.9%.

"Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.7 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 60.3 percent, were little changed in March," the Labor Department said in a statement.