The U.S. economy added only 20,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported this morning. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected 173,000 jobs for the month. In January the economy added 304,000 jobs.
The huge swing left economists and Wall Street analysts trying to figure out the trend. Everybody believes that the February 20,000 is an outlier caused by the government shutdown and the normal noise in season adjustments after the holiday season.
But economists were already expecting that the monthly trend in 2019 would be lower than in 2018. In 2018 the economy added an average of 223,000 jobs  month. Before today’s report economists were expecting the average to fall to 170,000 in 2019. I’d expect that figure to get bumped lower after the February report.
But how much lower?
Not everything was negative in the data. Average hourly wages climbed 0.4% in February. Economists had expected a 0.3% gain. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8% from 4.0% in January. The full unemployment rate, the U-6 rate–dropped to 7.3%, the lowest since 2001, from 8.1% in January. This unemployment rate includes discouraged workers who have stopped looking for jobs and part-time workers who would like to find full-time work.
In other news this morning, we got a mixed report from the housing market. January housing starts rose to a 1.23 million rate in January from a revised 1.037 rate in December. That was ahead of economists projections for a 1.180 million rate. Housing permits, an indicator of future housing starts, rose to a 1.345 million rate in January from a 1.326 rate in December. That still left housing starts down 7.8% year over year and permits down 1.5% year over year.
On this data and renewed worried chatter about the prospects for a U.S.-China trade deal, the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell for a fifth straight day. The index was at 2725.21, down 0.85%, as of 1:30 New York time.The S&P 500 is now significantly below support at 2750, the 50-day moving average. There is some support at 2725 and then more at 2673, the 200-day moving average, and then at 2632.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.67%.The U.S.dollar is down today with the Dollar Spot Index off 0.36%.
