US non-farm payrolls fell 663k in March according to the US department of labor. As was the case for the past several months, losses were broad based, the main job loss categories were:
Goods Producing -305k
Construction -126k
Manufacturing -161k
Service Providing -358
Professional & Bus Services -133
Don’t try and add the above categories up as some of them overlap. As usual the revisions are of more importance than the headline number. January was revised down to a loss of -741k, the most jobs shed in a single month since 1949. February was unchanged at -651k. The 3 month moving average actually declined slightly but that could well be a head fake until will get the second revision to both February and March.
The unemployment rate rose to 8.5%, the highest level since November 1983, U6 which I personally feel is a better gauge of the extent of unemployment rose to 15.6%.
It is possible the worst monthly job losses are currently peaking although as noted above we won’t know that until all the revisions are in. Remember that the unemployment rate is the last number to turn around during a recovery, so for a more current picture of the employment the weekly jobless claims number are a better indicator.
On that score, as you can see above, employment is still doing it tough as jobless claims continue to hover around 650k. Whilst job losses may be peaking, significantly lower rates of job losses are some months away. The US unemployment rate is set his 9% in the next couple of months and there appears to be little to stop it from hitting double digits by year end.
