How bad is jobs report?

Would you believe worse than expected. Actually, it’s a good deal worse. While the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.1 percent in September, the Labor Department's separate payroll survey showed a loss of 159,000 jobs - 59,000 more than had been forecasted. Also, it was the biggest monthly decline since 2003. (The state and L.A. County numbers should be out in a couple of weeks.) From the NYT:

The new number was especially worrisome because the government conducted its survey during the week of Sept. 8, before the credit crisis took a new turn for the worse on Sept. 17. “The U.S. consumer is in major trouble, with wage and salary income growth evaporating, credit extremely tight or unavailable, home prices continuing to decline, and food and energy costs consuming a large share of household budgets,” said Joshua Shapiro, an economist at MFR, a research firm in New York. “Whatever the government might or might not do to try to bail out the financial system, a consumer-led recession is upon us, and it promises to be a serious one.”

Unlike the previous months of job losses, this one stands out because of its size – a monthly loss of 100,000+ is a big deal – and it's bound to raise new concerns that the slowdown is going well beyond construction, manufacturing and financial services. Even the steady unemployment rate is not really good news - it simply means that more people have stopped looking for work.