WHOOPS – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:  Instinctively, a lot of observers expected this.  New numbers out show the economy has taken a tumble.  The issue becomes, how bad might this get?  From The New York Times: 

The labor market’s yearlong streak of robust monthly job creation was broken on Friday with the Labor Department’s report that employers added just 126,000 workers in March, a marked slowdown in hiring that echoed earlier signs of a winter pall on the economy.

Analysts blamed the plunge in oil prices as well as the punishing weather in the Northeast, a combination that put a crimp on investment in the energy patch and construction and retail sales more broadly. But many still expect the economy to regain at least some of its momentum later this year.

“The American energy industry is adjusting very quickly to low oil prices, and so we’ve seen this in the counts of the number of rigs that are active,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust. “The bad news is we’re losing some jobs. The good news is, we hope, that the average consumer is saving a tremendous amount of money in lower gasoline prices.”

The slowdown is likely to reinforce the view among the more dovish policy makers at the Federal Reserve that interest rates should stay near zero at least through the summer because the economy may not be strong enough to stand on its own.

Speaking at a conference in San Francisco last week, Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, was relatively cautious in her assessment of the economy compared with some of her more hawkish colleagues at the Fed. She said that the Fed would move slowly to raise rates even after it began the process of lifting short-term borrowing costs from the near-zero level they have been at since 2008.

“For Yellen, this is an affirmation of what she did,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “She said she wants to see more improvement in the labor market.”

The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent, and wages rose 0.3 percent for private-sector workers in March, following a meager 0.1 percent rise in February.

In the Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday, government statisticians revised their previous estimates for February and January, subtracting 69,000 jobs from the first quarter’s total.

COMMENT:  This may partiallly explain why so many Americans, in surveys, say they don't see an improving economy around them.  The economy is not robust, and the right kinds of jobs are not being created.  Other than that, things are fine.

April 3, 2015