LETTER: The dismal US jobs report
In response to the Friday U.S. jobs report:
The thing to remember is that it’s only one month — April. And the average monthly job growth is 225,000-250,000 when the economy hums along at its normal pace. The estimate of 975,000 was unrealistic.
It’s too soon to read doom and gloom into one report—which likely will be revised (upward/downward) in the future.
The markets were not roiled by the report. If the report were as bad as the pundits made it out to be, the markets would have fallen. But investors (who are gamblers) interpreted the news as good. It keeps the Federal Reserve from intervening and printing new debt and dollars to lower interest rates to keep inflation from overheating the economy.
We’ll have to wait for more monthly reports and other financial indicators. The economy is not a sprint. It’s a marathon. You have to pace yourself.
