Jobapalooza

Not so good numbers this month on the jobs report front.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added 126,000 jobs in March, way less than the expected gain of 245,000 jobs.

This ends the 12-month streak of payroll gains over 200,000 and is the lowest number of monthly job gains since December 2013.

The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5% in March.

Wage growth, however, was better than expected, with earnings rising 0.3% month-on-month in March and rising 2.1% against the prior year.

The report showed that jobs gains continued to trend up in most industries, though jobs in the mining sector — which included oil-related jobs — saw a decline of 11,000 jobs in March. This sector has lost 30,000 jobs this year after adding 41,000 jobs in 2014.

Payroll gains in January and February were also revised lower, with February's gains falling to 264,000 from 295,000 and January's additions falling to 201,000 from 239,000.

Over the past three months, job gains have averaged 197,000 per month.

So 126k jobs, minus 69k downward revisions, is 57k jobs this month.

That's pretty bad.  If that's one bad month like December 2013, that's one thing.  If it's a start of a string of bad months, that's another.  We'll see how April comes in, but March was pretty sucktastic.