What sounded like good news a few days ago has turned out to be bad news. It's both under the number of incoming job seekers as well as well under the forecast.
U.S. payrolls rose far less than expected in March, keeping the door open for further monetary policy support from the Federal Reserve, even as the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 8.2 percent.As Roubini tweeted today, the only reason the unemployment rate looks like this is because the participation rate dropped. Many workers have stopped looking.
Employers added 120,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the smallest increase since October.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected nonfarm employment to increase 203,000 and the unemployment rate to hold at 8.3 percent.