The March jobs report is expected to show some signs of cooling in the labor market after two months of robust job gains shocked Wall Street to start the year.

The monthly report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, slated for release at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday, is expected to show nonfarm payrolls rose by 213,000 in March while the unemployment rate fell to 3.8% from the previous month, according to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In February, the US economy added 275,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 3.9%.

Here are the key numbers Wall Street will be looking at compared to the previous month, according to data from Bloomberg:

• Nonfarm payrolls: +213,000 vs. +275,000 previously

• Unemployment rate: 3.8% vs. 3.9% previously

• Average hourly earnings, month-on-month: +0.3% vs. +0.1% previously

• Average hourly earnings, year-on-year: +4.1% vs. +4.3% previously

• Average weekly hours worked: 34.3 vs. 34.3 previously

The report will serve as a test of the labor market as investors continue to watch for signs of cooling but hope for overall strength to support Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's current base case for interest cuts later this year. After two months of strong job gains, Powell has referred to the labor market as "strong but rebalancing" in a speech at Stanford University on Thursday.

Strength in the labor market has been considered a key to the economy avoiding recession while the Fed keeps rates restrictive to help fight inflation.

"[The March jobs report] should re-anchor expectations for a cooling labor market, but not one that is showing significant signs of weakness," Bank of America US economist Michael Gapen wrote in a research note.

Broadly, other data out this week has reflected a still-resilient labor market. The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), released Tuesday, showed both job openings and hires ticked up slightly in February. Meanwhile, the latest data on private employment from ADP showed 185,000 private jobs were added in March, above the 155,000 seen in February.

"The February Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey report is consistent with a labor market that is still quite healthy," Oxford Economics lead US economist Nancy Vanden Houten wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.

Wage data will once again be a closely tracked part of Friday's release. After January's jobs release, some economists were concerned wages may be picking up too quickly, a potential indicator of future stickiness in inflation. February's release largely calmed those concerns.

Despite the increases seen in recent private data, economists expect that wage growth continued to slow in March, with year-over-year growth for average hourly earnings projected to fall to 4.1% from 4.3% the month prior. On a monthly basis, wages are expected to have grown 0.3% from February.

"To the Fed, I think the more important thing really is what's going on with wage growth right now," HSBC chief multi-asset strategist Max Kettner told Yahoo Finance Live. "It's not really important whether NFPs will be at 200,000 or 250,000 or 300,000 as long as wage growth doesn't print like 0.4, 0.5 month on month for a couple of months."

Sticky inflation readings have already pushed out investors' hopes for interest rate cuts this year. On Thursday, markets were pricing in a 63% chance the Fed lowers interest rates at its June meeting.

"If March employment points to resilience without overheating (via moderation in wage growth), then we would expect this [current pricing of a Fed rate cut in June] to hold," BofA's Gapen wrote in his note previewing the jobs report.

Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer.

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