They should stick to predicting the weather
March job gains weakest in eight months
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Employers created 110,000 jobs in March, the smallest gain in eight months, as the number of manufacturing jobs contracted and retailers shed workers, the Labor Department said on Friday.
The surprisingly weak March jobs number was barely half the 220,000 that economists had forecast. In addition, it followed downwardly revised new-job totals of 243,000 in February and 124,000 in January instead of 262,000 and 132,000, respectively, as the government had previously reported.
The unemployment rate, however, which is calculated from a separate survey, declined to 5.2% from 5.4%.
The last month in which there were fewer new jobs was July last year, when only 83,000 were created.