U.S. payrolls rise by 228,000 in March, but unemployment rate increases to 4.2%

[Wiz Imp]

19. At this point, I'm inclined to say they are still honest

If the Trump administration were to fudge the numbers, they'd want them to look a whole lot better than this. Last month Trump bragged about the drop in Federal Government jobs. This report shows a drop of just 4000 Federal jobs. surely Trump wants that number to be a whole lot bigger. He also bragged about an increase in manufacturing jobs. This report shows a super anemic gain in manufacturing of just 1000.

The report also showed big downward revision to the previously published numbers for January and February.

To top it all, the massive layoffs and firings of federal employees are still not showing up in these numbers. Since many were court ordered to be reinstated, most have apparently not been removed from the counts yet. According to the New York Times, at least 60,000 people have been fired. If they were included in the report, the gain in jobs would be much lower.

While the top line job increase number looks OK, looking at the details, this was not a positive report at all. Future months (especially when the federal job cuts start being accounted for) will look much worse.