Aargh!

Dave Altig comments on the jobs numbers:

What does seem clear is that the pace of net job creation is still well below the levels required to appreciably improve the unemployment rate or to make a sizable step toward regaining the eight million-plus jobs lost since the beginning of the recession. Updating a calculation referenced in a speech by Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart on Wednesday, at a pace of 162,000 jobs added per month and at the current labor force participation rate, unemployment this time next year would still be just north of 9 percent.

Well yes, but at the pace of job creation in February every man, woman and child in America would have been unemployed by 2046. So that's an improvement.

[In case it's not obvious, my point is that there's no reason to believe that employment gains have reached a plateau at 162,000. For the last year there's been a steady improvement in the employment situation - the growth in jobs each quarter has been better than in the previous quarter (or more precisely, until this quarter, the decline in jobs has been less bad). This trend should continue.]