Economists

The first of this week's three big employment numbers was released this morning. Tomorrow, we will learn the first-time claims number. Friday, the unemployment number and rate for the previous month.  As this item from Reuters indicates, the signs are not good:

Private employers added 119,000 jobs in April, well below economists' expectations in the latest piece of data to suggest the economy is encountering a soft patch, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

As well, March's private payrolls were revised down to an increase of 131,000 from the previously reported 158,000.

And according to Zero Hedge, even that does not paint the full, dismaying picture:

This was the 5th month in a row of declines excluding the small bounce in February data. It also means that the combined miss to expectations including March (original estimate +200K) and April (estimate 150K) is precisely 100K. 

Does it not feel like this is getting old?