Jobless Claims Fall 6,000 -- March Non-Farm Payrolls -- Huge Disappointment -- Unemployment Rate Drops to 8.2%

First time unemployment claims -- magic number: 400,000 (goal < 400,000)
New jobs -- magic number: 200,000 (goal > 200,000)

Record number of folks not in labor pool: 88 million
Increasing number of folks dropping out of labor pool or not getting in to begin with
Stock market not likely what it is seeing

Updates

April 9, 2012: My instincts were correct -- Friday's jobs number was pathetic; stock market continuing to react today; down another 130 points; not a good report, and some folks think the nice weather in March artificially boosted the earlier report; long hot summer. 

April 6, 2012, later: Bloomberg says the same thing -- jobs report not good.

Ben Bernanke warned last month that payroll gains might slow as companies adjust their labor needs for a period of moderate growth. Today’s Labor Department report may have proved the Federal Reserve chairman right.

Employers in the U.S. added 120,000 jobs in March, the fewest in five months. The unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent the month before as people stopped looking for work. The March report followed the best six-month streak of job growth since 2006.

April 6, 2012, later: wow, wow, wow -- the LA Times headline is even more definitive -- "Job Growth Slows Sharply in March"

Employers added a modest 120,000 new jobs in March, ending a streak of solid job gains in the prior three months and raising fresh questions about the strength of the economy and hiring momentum in coming months.

The nation's jobless rate inched down to 8.2% from 8.3% in February, the Labor Department said Friday, but that came amid a shrinking labor force in which more people dropped out of the job market and thus weren't counted as unemployed.
 
Analysts were expecting growth of about 210,000 jobs in March, after gains of more than 220,000 in each of the prior three months. Some of those earlier gains may have been influenced by the unseasonably warm weather, so the latest slowdown could have been in part due to a kind of payback for the inflated payrolls in the winter.

April 6, 2012, later: wow, wow, wow -- I guess I wasn't the only one who spotted this yesterday! Here's what zerohedge had to say:

The unemployment rate drops to 8.2% for one simple reason: the number of people not in the labor force is back to all time highs: 87,897,000.

March NFP big miss at just 120K.  Joe LaVorgna's +250,000 forecast was just 100% off... as usual.

Joe LaVorgna?

Anyway, people are looking at the early predictions and one name stands out: Deutsche Bank uber-bull Joe LaVorgna is at the top of the heap, calling for 300K new payrolls.

By the way, speaking of CNBC (were we?), I think the dumbest move in business television was Erin Burnett leaving CBNC. Maybe she is getting higher ratings over at CNN where she hosts her own show, or maybe her new show is simply a stepping stone to something bigger, but one wonders if CNBC blew it by not giving her own show at the business channel. She seems to be the most knowledgeable of CNBC's talking heads, most articulate, and perhaps the most photogenic. Is Dylan Ratigan faring any better?

April 6, 2012: Employment numbers rose far less than expected

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.

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 jobless rate to hold at 8.3 percent.

The weak employment growth last month likely reflected the fading boost from unseasonably warm winter weather. The payrolls count for January and February was revised to show just 4,000 more jobs created than previously reported.

When the original report came out yesterday (see original post below) a reader suggested that I was being "too negative" in the way I reported the story (see below). I did not post the comment based on my criteria for posting comments.

I thought my note below was fairly balanced, though I could see how it might be construed as "too negative." So, now, a day later, I find it interesting that even Reuters, after they've had a chance to review the data, suggest that the "good news" yesterday is actually... well, not so good. 

Another interesting point (suggested by another reader): this "more negative" analysis by Reuters was released on a day when the market is closed, going into a three-day weekend for many. Again, as usual, the reader suggests we will see "bad news" released after the weekly news cycle, usually after 5:00 p.m. EST Fridays. Today, of course, was an exception.

Original Post

Link here.

Today's number: 357,000. Okay.

Lowest level in nearly four years. I can just hear the talking heads now.

And, of course, the usual revision, buried near the end of the story:

The prior week's figure was revised up to 363,000 from the previously reported 359,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a claims reading of 355,000 for last week.