Holy Good Friday crap.

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 120,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in manufacturing, food services and drinking places, and health care, but was down in retail trade.

THAT is a miss.  My pessimistic number was +125k (+175 +/- 50) so I missed by 5k on the lower end.  Damn.

The worst part was a loss of 34,000 in retail trade.

Worse, workweek was down 0.1 hours, with manufacturing down 0.3 hours.

The household survey was materially more-promising.  There was an alleged 728,000 increase in the employed number among the household survey.  This is dramatically higher than the 169,000 people added to the non-institutional population.  Hmmm.

CNBC is keeerayzy screaming about how terrible everything is.  The household survey says something else.  Here are the "big charts":

As you can see on an annualized basis this is simply not a bad number.  Remember that the annualized look removes the "Seasonal factors" -- and while it's not gaining, ground was not lost either - nor was it on a monthly basis.

The total employed figure was up.

"Not in labor force" is basically flat.

The employment rate, however, did not move much.  While it did tick up a bit (good) it's basically flat on the floor (bad.)  This is the most-important chart in the series, as it goes directly to fiscal sustainability.  It will eventually force fiscal consolidation by the federal government (read: big, big cuts in spending or increases in taxes) -- no way around it -- unless it can be reversed.  And there is no indication that it will be, or can be.

Finally, after a bump upward to near the zero line on the "We R Screwed" indicator, we're back under zero and headed southbound.  The deterioration was not big, but it was present -- and it's not good.  (This series is the annualized change in employment ex-population changes -- and if it's negative, you're bleeding employment compared to the number of people in working age within the nation.)

In short the report is not great, but it also is not the disaster being portrayed.  The household survey says we added a material number of jobs when looking at the unadjusted numbers -- which is what I operate from.  However, the market was apparently looking for much better, and certainly expecting more than 200k -- and didn't get it.

And with that, I'm off for Good Friday.

Monday ought to be interesting.

PS: If this is "recovery" what's a second recessionary dip -- which I think we're headed for here and now; it's baked into the cake from the PPI increases that must go through the python of the last year and change -- going to look like?  That ought to hit us starting right about next month and continue through the election.  Oh joy.