162,000 Jobs Added Last Month

The March employment numbers are in and they're the best we've seen in three years.  The government is reporting that 162,000 jobs were added last month--a significant increase from previous months.  Some words of caution though.  First, Census hiring and a recovery from the horrible weather earlier in the year may be partially responsible for the gains.  Second, the unemployment figure remained steady at 9.7%.  Indeed, the country needs to add between 100,000-150,000 new jobs every month (depending on the source) just to keep the unemployment rate level.  So, we're basically treading water now.  Of course, that's a lot better than the drowning of the last few years.

-JH