March Unemployment Numbers: The Good, The Bad and the Indiff

The March unemployment number is in and—surprise!—not much has changed. The news was mostly positive: the DOL figures show a net gain of 162,000 jobs during March, but that figure wasn't enough to shift the overall unemployment rate below 9.7 percent—the same place it's been all year. (There's a medical term for what the overall number has done this year: flatlining. Unfortunately for us, the "patient" in this case is the US economy, and no-one's quite figured out how the defibrillator paddles work yet.)

Perhaps the most disheartening thing about the statistics is that even as the President was announcing that "[w]e are turning the corner," he still took time out to acknowledge that we're nowhere near a healthy economic situation. We've kind of come to expect doom, gloom and monthly updates on an unacceptably high jobless rate from Tim Geithner, but when the Commander in Chief feels compelled to point to the "staggering" losses of late, it's a little harder to ignore.

He has a point, though: eight million job losses over the past two years is a staggering number.

Still, as we head into a holiday weekend that promises—among other things—nicer weather for vast swathes of the country, we're keen to accentuate the positive. And there's nothing quite as positive—we think—as job gains. On that note, then, have a great weekend!

--Posted by Phil Stott, Vault.com