Employers Added Just 98,000 Jobs in March Below Expectations of 180,000 (usatoday.com)

Employers slowed their pace of hiring while the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level in almost a decade in March, highlighting steady but sometimes mixed progress across the labor market. From a report on USA Today: Payroll growth weakened significantly last month amid harsher winter weather as employers added 98.000 jobs in a sharper pullback than anticipated. The unemployment rate, which is calculated from a different survey, fell to 4.5% from 4.7%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected 180,000 employment gains, based on their median estimate. Analysts expected some payback in March after unseasonably mild temperatures pulled forward hiring to early in the year, especially in sectors such as construction, resulting in 200,000-plus job gains in January and February. And a snowstorm that slammed into the Midwest and East Coast in mid-March likely further curtailed job growth, says economist Jim O'Sullivan of High Frequency Economics. [...] But some economists also have said the outsize job gains early this year defied a low unemployment rate that's supplying businesses a shrinking pool of available workers. Many analysts expect that trend ultimately to result in average monthly job gains of about 170,000 this year, down from 187,000 last year and 226,000 in 2015.

Comments

We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps

[Joe_Dragon]

We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps

or someone willing to work 60-80 hours a week in the bay area for 60K

Re:We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps

[Nidi62]

At a point, being wealthier doesn't really help you, because you buy all these toys but you work all the time and don't have any leisure hours to play with them.

You don't buy all those toys to play with them. You buy all those toys because someone else at the country club bought them, and because Bob down the street doesn't own them and you want him to be jealous. Or did you think they actually used those extra 2 kitchens and 4 bedrooms, or the Olympic sized swimming pool with waterfall and and built-in grill that would give Bobby Flay wet dreams? That's why they have to lease the newest Range Rover, Porsche, or BMW every 2 years. Once you reach a certain threshold, toys aren't meant to be used, they're meant to be seen.

Re:We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps

[bluefoxlucid]

Rich people take vacations and private jet flights. Middle-classers just up-size their house from 982sqft (1950 average new single-family home size) to 2,300sqft (2000 size) and try to figure on when they can play all their XBox games.

Generally, we've gotten bigger houses and apartments to store our computers, tablets, kitchen appliances, washing machines, 6 TVs (one in every room), guitars, bicycles, fancy lamps, and so forth. We've also started to eat at McDonalds a lot, because who has time to cook? If we cooked, we couldn't watch all that anime on Netflix.

Re:We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps

[swillden]

efficiency improvements would normally lead to sharp population expansion

Huh? Humans are not rabbits. All evidence shows that the wealthier we get, the fewer children we have.

Re:ADP said 230,000

[PopeRatzo]

Yet the government, who hates Trump, reports 98,000.

That number came from Trump's labor department.

Re:ADP said 230,000

[GameboyRMH]

Well clearly the influence of the DEEP STATE is at work here, to report such un-American job numbers!

I wonder if Trump will request a secret investigation into how many deep state henchmen are in the labor department XD

This Thread, Pre-Russian Troll

[notsteve]

It's so interesting to see these threads in virgin form, before the Russian trolls assigned to Slashdot descend.

Some data to understand that number

[whitroth]

About 8 or 10 years ago, and this was the *only* time I heard it, not since, the US economy needs to add about 128k jobs per month, for the number of people entering the workforce over those leaving it.

Re:Thanks Obama

[sunking2]

This actually makes sense. So many jobs have been saved that not as many people need to find new ones.

Restaurant bubble

[jfisherwa]

This might be partially related to the restaurant bubble ending.

Re:Suddenly.. Slashdot reports

[sexconker]

Why is this modded troll?

The headline is "Employers Added Just 98,000 Jobs in March Below Expectations of 180,000".
The summary starts with "Employers slowed their pace of hiring while the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level in almost a decade in March".
The rest of the summary also explains that March's growth numbers were likely impacted by January and February having had larger-than-expected numbers, the big storms in the midwest, etc.

The headline is very negative while the summary is fairly neutral. The headline could have also been spun to be positive, such as "98,000 Jobs Added As Unemployment Hits Decade Low", but of course that doesn't generate as many clicks.

The parent AC is correct. This shit doesn't belong on Slashdot and the headline is engineered to be negative.

Re:Meanwhile

[sexconker]

Binary guy is correct for once.

Both factually (Google it - "In what appeared to be a terrorist attack, a truck plowed into a crowd on a street and crashed into a department store in central Stockholm on Friday.") and rhetorically (this Anti-Trump spin job of a headline attached to a fairly neutral summary is far less significant than another terrorist attack in fragile Europe).

Re:Thanks Obama

[sexconker]

We went through 8 years of Obama where anything bad was blamed on Bush and his policies, yet anything good was credited to Obama, often in advance and for no actual reason (e.g., the Nobel Peace Prize).

Yet even before Trump took office, he was taking blame for shit Obama did or put into motion. Many of the things he was blamed for were simply made up. And when he does something good, no one gives him credit.

The media dug their own graves during the 2-year long campaign cycle (thanks to, Hillary campaigning a fucking year early), and now their spinning in them since that's what they do best.