On Friday morning at 8:30 am the bad news was put out by the BLS, our economy had lost 80,000 jobs in the month of March. The unemployment rate jumped from 4.8% to 5.1%, the highest since September of 2005. This was the worst month of job losses for the economy since March 2003. If this wasn't enough the downward revisions were quite huge from January and February. February was revised lower by 13,000 jobs, and January was revised lower by a whopping 54,000 jobs. 
There simply isn't a way to spin this report in a positive way. Economists were expecting 50,000 jobs lost and it came in at 80,000. The manufacturing sector continued to lead the job losses, losing 48,000 more jobs in the month. Construction jobs also fell by 51,000, after losing 37,000 jobs in February. The trend is crystal clear here and things are most certainly going in the wrong direction.
If the jobs number was this bad, why exactly did the stock market finish around unchanged on Friday? I truthfully don't know myself, as after the number came out I would have guessed that the Dow would finish the day down triple digits, but that did not come about. It seems to me that some investors thought the number could have been even worse. Having said that, I believe that the continuance of this trend will most certainly catch up with the markets. In fact, I would not be a bit surprised to see the markets open up this coming week quite negatively as investors and traders digest just how bad the economic situation is right now.
The market may be able to fight the jobs data for one day, but there simply is no denying the fact that the jobs picture is growing more gloomy by the day and the market will have to come to grips with that sooner or later.
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