What happened to the jobs? Did the economy really crash down on job creation in March? If so, what’s to blame – higher gasoline prices? Is seasonal adjustment playing a role? These are the questions that the mainstream press is asking after a weak addition of 120k jobs were added in the March report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
For all the hand wringing, one possibility never comes up – that the data are simply whacked. That may seem unlikely, but given that a different labor report comes out with a potentially better method of collecting the data you never know. Let’s be fair and call it a bit of a mystery for now. Here’s why: