Well, so bad that even the stock market didn’t like it and it usually welcomes news that restrains the Fed from raising interest rates. But this morning, the NYSE opened over 200 points in the red.
Here are some of the ugly details one finds when drilling down into the numbers.
* For the last three months, average job growth comes in at 167,000. Nearly 100,000 below the average for 2014. We are going in reverse.
* Average hourly wages were expected to rise by 0.2%. They remained flat at 0.0%.
* Labor force participation declined 0.3% year over year and, at 62.4%, is the lowest it has been since President Obama came into office.
* Of the 142,000 new jobs, 24,000 are in government.
* Not only did workers not get a raise, they also worked less: The average workweek declined from 34.6 to 34.5 hours.
They have talked, for seven years now, about a “recovery.” But it is another “R” word that is increasingly on people’s minds.
