An interesting jobs report to say the least.  Non-farm payrolls came in at -345K which was substantially better than the -530K the market was expecting. The unemployment rate spiked to 9.4% and wage growth was worse than expected at 0.1%.   The stock market is up only marginally on the news which is rather shocking considering the euphoric reaction to any and all recent “better than expected” figures.

On the bright side of the report is the number of jobs lost.  It’s  hard to make the argument that the jobs picture is going to get worse than it was in Q1.  As I’ve been saying for months, Q4 & Q1 were simply unsustainable levels of deterioration.  At 666 the market was pricing in continued economic deterioration at that rate which was clearly an overreaction.  On the other hand, 345K is still an extraordinary number of job losses.  It’s not good news, it’s just not as bad as expected.  On the negative side is the unemployment rate.  Corporations are still playing it very safe rather than hiring.  This does not bode well for the reflationist theme.  The most interesting piece of the data is the wage growth which came in at 0.1%.  That was lower than the 0.2% analyst’s expected.  If inflation is becoming a concern we’re certainly not seeing it in the data yet. If hyperinflation were working its way into the system we’d certainly start seeing it in wage growth.  This is one more notch against the effectiveness of the Bernanke Fed.  He appears to have created inflation in everything that owns us rather than inflation in the things we own….