It's The Economy Stupid: It's A Bad Day For The Home Team

Economic Event	Period	Economic Survey	Actual Reported	Original Prior	Revised Prior
Trade Balance	FEB	-$44.6B	-$43.0B	-$44.4B	-$44.5B
Change in Nonfarm Payrolls	MAR	190K	88K	236K	268K
Change in Private Payrolls	MAR	200K	95K	246K	254K
Change in Manufact. Payrolls	MAR	10K	-3K	14K	19K
Unemployment Rate	MAR	7.7%	7.6%	7.7%
Avg Hourly Earning MoM All Empl	MAR	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
Avg Hourly Earning YoY All Empl	MAR	2.0%	1.8%	2.1%
Avg Weekly Earning YoY All Empl	MAR	34.5	34.6	34.5
Change in Household Employment	MAR		-206	170
Uderemployment Rate (U6)	MAR		13.8%	14.3%

 

That sucking noise that you are hearing?  It’s jobs being sucked out of the economy.  This is one pig that you can’t put lipstick on.  This is a shocker.  Just a bad, bad economic report.

 

Employers hired fewer workers than forecast in March and a slump in the size of the labor force pushed the jobless rate down to a four-year low, indicating the U.S. job market is struggling to make bigger strides.  The labor force participation rate fell to 63.3 percent, the lowest since May 1979.  Let’s make sure we all understand this.  The Unemployment Rate is going down because there are less and less people looking for jobs.  That’s not good people!!!

 

Two percent real GDP growth is starting to look like an optimistic number.

 

Payrolls grew by 88,000 workers last month, the smallest in nine months, after a revised 268,000 gain in February that was higher than first estimated.   The median forecast of 87 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected an advance of 190,000. The jobless rate fell to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent.

 

Tempered hiring plans suggest companies are confident in their ability to meet demand with the existing workforce as federal budget cuts cloud the economic outlook. The absence of sustained and bigger gains in employment and earnings underscores the Federal Reserve’s view that more progress is needed before record monetary policy stimulus can be scaled back.

 

The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was forecast to hold at 7.7 percent, according to the Bloomberg survey median. The figure, the lowest since December 2008, reflected a 496,000 decline in the size of the labor force.  The labor force participation rate fell to 63.3 percent, the lowest since May 1979.

    

The payroll figure reflected a drop in factory employment and the biggest decline at retail trade since February 2012.

 

Employers boosted hours to meet demand. The average work week for all employees increased by six minutes to 34.6 hours, the highest since February 2012. At the same time, average hourly earnings for all workers were stagnant in March.

 

Payroll projections ranged from gains of 100,000 to 366,000 following an initially reported 236,000 increase in February, according to the Bloomberg survey. Revisions to the prior two months’ reports added a total of 61,000 jobs to the employment count in January and February.

 

Private payrolls, which don’t include jobs at government agencies, climbed by 95,000 in March after a revised gain of 254,000 the previous month. Economists forecast they would grow 200,000 following an initially reported 246,000 gain in January.  Factory employment dropped by 3,000 workers in March, compared with a projected 10,000 advance and following a 19,000 increase in the previous month.