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It’s Jobs Day, which means another round of befuddlement over the state of the United States economy. Despite its rocky jobs report for the month of February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics came out Friday with better-than-expected employment projections for March: 178,000 new positions added—almost triple the amount non-government economists had anticipated. There was also a slight dent in the unemployment rate, from 4.4 percent to 4.3 percent. Even amid cataclysmic energy shocks and relentless spates of white-collar layoffs, the American economic engine appears to be humming along smoothly.
Or, maybe, not so much. As with all Labor Department reports, the rosy top-line numbers require the context of their underlying trends—and those aren’t looking so pretty. Future revisions will grant us a more thorough sense of what March was actually like, and the impact of the Iran war will soon be more broadly felt as the far-reaching Strait of Hormuz disruptions pile up. Still, a closer examination of Friday’s jobs report already reveals some concerning indicators that should give the bulls some pause.
