The March Jobs Report: No Big Surprises, But No Recovery In Sight

No surprises in the March employment report. Payroll employment fell 660,000 and revisions to previous months subtracted another 80,000 from the level of jobs. The same pattern we have seen over the past five months. Combine this data with the likely revisions from the benchmark survey (the direction is down because firms are failing faster than they are being created), and we are losing something in the ballpark of 1,000,000 jobs per month. Shocking, but no longer surprising.
Of minor interest, in percentage terms, we have finally surpassed the downturn in the early 1980s. Indeed, with the revisions, we surpassed the 1980 downturn in January, we just didn’t find out until today.

As I stare into my crystal ball, I don’t see any signs of a labor-market recovery. I could not find a subsector that showed any indication of rebounding. Further, unemployment insurance claims remain high and continuing claims are still rising. Survey data tell the same story. April does not seem to be on a better jobs track than March. And, the economy cannot expand while the labor market is contracting by 0.5 percent per month.