Today's Jobs Report was awful! Economists were expecting 144 thousand jobs were created and were stunned when they learned only 39 thousand were created. Given the steady flow of relatively good economic data over the past few months, this is a surprise . . . a fishy surprise.
Data for last month's Jobs Report was increased from 151 thousand to 172 thousand. So, we created 172 thousand jobs last month, had a month of good data, but only produced 39 thousand this month . . . something is wrong.
In addition, the unemployment rate jumped to 9.8%. It is normal for the unemployment rate to increase when the job market turns around, as people begin flooding back into the market and start looking again. So, why did so many people start looking again, since we were producing fewer jobs.
I expect next month's report will show a substantial upward revision to the 39 thousand this month.
In the meantime, this report increases the likelihood that the Fed will continue its quantitative easing program, that Congress will extend the Bush & Obama tax cuts, and that unemployment benefits will be extended.
