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For 10 straight months, monthly job growth has alternated between positive and negative - excellent graph
The US labor market right now can be defined by one word: Whiplash, Yahoo Finance, 4/4/26https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-us-labor-market-right-now-can-be-defined-by-one-word-whiplash/ar-AA208SXY
Data from the Labor Department published Friday showed the US economy added 178,000 jobs in March after February's revised loss of 133,000. In March, the unemployment rate edged down to 4.3%.
On its face, that looks like a sharp turnaround. In context, it looks more like another violent swing in a labor market that has become unusually hard to read. And that whiplash nature of the labor market is the real story in the economy right now.
For 10 straight months, monthly job growth has alternated between positive and negative. The past three months alone went from a gain of 160,000 to a loss of 133,000 to a gain of 178,000.
Each report feels huge. Each report also says less on its own.
If the current swing in monthly job gains and losses were a stock chart, technicians might call the green trend lines on the chart above a broadening megaphone pattern: wider swings, more disagreement, less clarity.
And while technical analysis doesn't work with economic data, that framing isn't a bad way to think about the labor market. The monthly data swings are becoming more extreme, even as the longer-term trend continues to weaken.
On its face, that looks like a sharp turnaround. In context, it looks more like another violent swing in a labor market that has become unusually hard to read. And that whiplash nature of the labor market is the real story in the economy right now.
For 10 straight months, monthly job growth has alternated between positive and negative. The past three months alone went from a gain of 160,000 to a loss of 133,000 to a gain of 178,000.
Each report feels huge. Each report also says less on its own.
If the current swing in monthly job gains and losses were a stock chart, technicians might call the green trend lines on the chart above a broadening megaphone pattern: wider swings, more disagreement, less clarity.
And while technical analysis doesn't work with economic data, that framing isn't a bad way to think about the labor market. The monthly data swings are becoming more extreme, even as the longer-term trend continues to weaken.
More at link
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On the whole, the job market is all but frozen, with little in the way of hiring or turnover. And for recent college graduates, it’s even worse.
The April jobs report looks good — but there’s rot underneath.
— TheBlackPage (Woke, DEI forever against fascism) (@theblackpage.bsky.social) 2026-04-03T17:16:38.915Z
On the whole, the job market is all but frozen, with little in the way of hiring or turnover. And for recent college graduates, it’s even worse.
www.ms.now/opinion/jobs...
https://www.ms.now/opinion/jobs-report-reaction
Yes, the April jobs report released Friday showed that the U.S. added 178,000 jobs last month, well above expectations. But over the last six months, job growth has averaged just 89,000 per month – weak sauce by any measure. As usual during Trump 2.0, the health care industry led the way with 76,000 jobs added (thanks in part to the resolution of a strike at Kaiser Permanente). Other industries lagged: while manufacturing employment grew 12,000, there are still 82,000 fewer such jobs than when Trump returned to the White House, And a large part of the reason the overall unemployment rate fell to 4.3% is because 400,000 people exited the workforce entirely.
?resize=560,695
Overall, the job market is all but frozen, with little in the way of hiring or turnover. And for recent college graduates, it’s even worse, which might help explain Trump’s faltering support among this cohort. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, more than 40 percent of college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 hold jobs that typically don’t require a college degree. That high a share is usually seen only during economic downturns and their immediate aftermath, and is comparable to rates seen in the aftermath of the Great Recession.....
Economists are increasingly predicting stagflation – a period of low growth and high inflation – for the U.S. No surprise, consumer sentiment is all but in the toilet, with the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey at near-record lows and huge numbers of Americans say they believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.....
At the same time, the extreme corruption of the Trump administration is also giving companies a license to raise prices and otherwise treat their customers like chumps without a choice. The gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has left Americans with nowhere to turn when a credit card issuer or bank does them wrong. The de facto refusal to enforce antitrust statutes will almost certainly raise costs for Americans as well.
As I’ve pointed out before, Trump’s economy in many ways resembles to a multi-level marketing scheme. The only people making out here are the wealthiest of the wealthy, who are benefitting from tax cuts, while Trump performs his lifelong serial con bait and switch on the rest of us. This month’s job numbers are almost certainly offering more of the same – they look good on first glance, but dig beneath the surface, and the rot quickly becomes apparent.
?resize=560,695
Overall, the job market is all but frozen, with little in the way of hiring or turnover. And for recent college graduates, it’s even worse, which might help explain Trump’s faltering support among this cohort. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, more than 40 percent of college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 hold jobs that typically don’t require a college degree. That high a share is usually seen only during economic downturns and their immediate aftermath, and is comparable to rates seen in the aftermath of the Great Recession.....
Economists are increasingly predicting stagflation – a period of low growth and high inflation – for the U.S. No surprise, consumer sentiment is all but in the toilet, with the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey at near-record lows and huge numbers of Americans say they believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.....
At the same time, the extreme corruption of the Trump administration is also giving companies a license to raise prices and otherwise treat their customers like chumps without a choice. The gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has left Americans with nowhere to turn when a credit card issuer or bank does them wrong. The de facto refusal to enforce antitrust statutes will almost certainly raise costs for Americans as well.
As I’ve pointed out before, Trump’s economy in many ways resembles to a multi-level marketing scheme. The only people making out here are the wealthiest of the wealthy, who are benefitting from tax cuts, while Trump performs his lifelong serial con bait and switch on the rest of us. This month’s job numbers are almost certainly offering more of the same – they look good on first glance, but dig beneath the surface, and the rot quickly becomes apparent.