WORK WEARY

March net employment growth was a powerful 178,000, but Jan/Feb were lowered 69,000, and while the unemployment rate declined from 4.4% to 4.3%, it’s because the participation rate eased to 61.9% from 62%. Moreover, the workweek shrank to 34.2 hours, wage growth slid from 3.8% Y-o-Y to 3.5%, and from 4.2% a year ago. Thus, work-based pay slipped 0.1% M-o-M! GDP growth is coming exclusively from productivity growth, not ideal.