For months, the U.S. economy's strength has been flagging.Not that you read about it anywhere.
Manufacturing slowed. Fewer homes were built. Cheaper gas failed to ignite consumer spending. Yet month after month, employers kept on hiring vigorously.
Curiously, that part was always in the news.
In March, the economy's slump finally overtook the job market.
Employers added 126,000 workers ‐ the fewest since December 2013 ‐ snapping a 12-month streak of gains above 200,000. At the same time, the unemployment rate remained at 5.5 percent.
And if you can't believe the government's unemployment rate, what can you believe?
The slowdown reported Friday by the Labor Department puzzled economists.
Puzzled or muzzled?
Was the tepid job gain a temporary blip mainly from a harsh winter and an economy adjusting to much lower oil prices?
Well, there were a lot of West-Texas oil field workers laid off recently.
Or did it mark a return to the middling performance that's defined much of the nearly 6-year-old recovery from the recession?
Six-year "recovery". Is it just a coincidence that time period corresponds to someone's term of office?
No one will know for sure until the government's monthly employment reports later this spring help gauge the direction of the job market. That leaves the U.S. economy ‐ until recently the envy of other industrialized nations ‐ facing renewed uncertainty.
That's really been the only constant for the last six years - uncertainty.
"We knew less than we thought we did," said Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University professor and chief economist at Indeed, the job-posting website.
Refreshing candor!
