About 53,000 people found jobs last month, beating expectations and suggesting Australia's labour market still has plenty of heat.
The lift in employment and fall in unemployed people kept the official jobless rate around 50-year lows at 3.5 per cent in March.
"With employment increasing by around 53,000 people, and the number of unemployed decreasing by 1600 people, the unemployment rate remained at a near 50-year low of 3.5 per cent," Australian Bureau of Statistics head of labour statistics Lauren Ford said.
Ms Ford said both the employment-to-population ratio, lifting 0.1 per cent to 64.4 per cent, and the participation rate, holding firm at 66.7 per cent, were close to historic highs.
The figures reflected ongoing tightness in the labour market and explained why employers were finding it hard to fill roles, she said.
The March labour force figures follow a few months of seesawing results driven by an abnormally large number of people waiting to start new jobs in January and then taking up those roles in February.
KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne said the labour force report illustrated the strength of the economy and its ability to exceed expectations.
Dr Rynne expected to see around 20,000 jobs added to the economy, a figure based largely on ABS job payroll data.
"What this shows is just amazing strength within the labour market and the Australian economy, and certainly much, much stronger than what any of us had predicted," he told ABC News on Thursday.
BIS Oxford Economics head of macroeconomic forecasting Sean Langcake said faster population growth had helped soak up strong demand for workers in the tight market.
"While the labour market continues to track in such a strong position, there will continue to be upward pressure on wage growth."
Mr Langcake said the numbers would keep pressure on the Reserve Bank to hike in May after it opted to pause interest rate rises in April, with higher rates yet to do much to temper demand and cool wage and inflation pressures.
"There are very few signs of weakness in these data and little to suggest the labour market is slackening in a meaningful way."
Indeed, NAB analysis of Seek job data revealed signs of ad numbers steadying, after falling sharply in the back half of last year.
The job ads figures, which can point to upcoming trends in the labour market, fell 0.6 per cent in March and continued a broad pattern of stabilisation through the early months of 2023.