March US non-farm payrolls shocked markets Friday and not in a good way. Here are the charts courtesy of Calculated Risk. Headline jobs were half expectations at 126k and there were 70k downward revisions to Jan/Feb:
The unemployment rate was stable at 5.5% but only because the participation rate fell:
Year-on-year growth is still good at 3.1 million jobs:
Productivity measures are flattening or improving:
Wage growth is still nowhere:
And shadow unemployment very high:
A weak report. Some are blaming a rough winter though it was not as bad as last year and hiring was unaffected then. Some are blaming the high dollar which makes more sense but probably can’t account for it all. The oil crash is my bet as layoffs in shale states rocket.
Forget a mid year rate rise (if you didn’t already), the market chatter is now September which is still too hawkish in my view. It’s Q4 at best and more likely 2016.
