Jobs Report: Good News -- More Americans Looking For Jobs -- AP

Better news would have been if they actually found jobs they were looking for.

Country adds 175,000 jobs: above consensus of 165,000.

Below the anemic average last fall.

Unemployment rate edges up to 7.6%.

Data points:

• 12,000 fewer jobs in March and April (the article doesn't say if that was a revision, but it appears to be so)
• 175,000? The average between November, 2012, and February, 2013: 235,000
• unemployment rate rose because more Americans looking for job

Remember: the magic number is 200,000. That used to be the number of added jobs to suggest economy doing well. Over time the media has gradually lowered that number, now about 150,000.

From Bloomberg: 

Retailers, the hospitality industry and temporary-help agencies accounted for 96,300, or 55 percent, of 175,000 jobs added in May, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. [In other words: low-paying, temporary jobs, with little potential for job advancement or wage increases.]

Reuters headline:  "hiring points to resilience in economy." Yahoo's headline for the same story: "Fed's help still needed." That was the original headline: "Fed's help still needed," but it was changed to "hiring points to resilience in economy." By all accounts, the number was not good; maybe not horrendous, but certainly not good. Reuters has lost a lot of credibility under this administration.

Futures surge. Anemic job growth; unemployment edges up. There is no way the Fed will "taper" this year. Bernanke says he won't "taper" until economy/job growth is sustainable. We're back to square 1. "Sustainable" is off the table; we're back to "recovery?" What recovery?

Broad market up; oil up. What's not to like. Oil is up, I assume, because traders feel the dollar will weaken. Certainly there is no shortage of oil. Russia outproducing Saudi; Saudi imports to US up significantly in most recent data (March, 2013); record US shale production.