After Disappointing Jobs Data, Now What?

President Obama has been claiming while out on the campaign trail that he has created over five million jobs since being sworn into office in January 2009. Today, we're going to adapt the chart we normally feature after each monthly employment situation report to see what the real numbers are, by age group!

OTTAWA — We already know Canada’s economy ended last year in dismal shape. While no one is predicting a healthy turnaround this year, you may soon see some stronger vital signs. In a week of clustered economic data — from interest rates to employment numbers — a major Canadian bank says, “based on admittedly slim evidence,” the first quarter of 2013 could bring surprising — though not great — growth.

By Russ Koesterich: From ISM numbers to jobs reports, last week's U.S. economic data was disappointing and showed that the economy, though it's getting better, isn't recovering as fast as some had hoped. The downbeat data quickly translated into stock market weakness and raises the question: "What does this mean for the U.S. economy and market going forward?"

The Canadian economy shed 54,000 jobs in March, falling well short of analysts’ expectations for a gain of 8,500. This drove the unemployment rate up two ticks to 7.2%. Here’s what economists had to say about the result and outlook.

By now, you've heard that the May 2012 jobs report was really dismal. And why wouldn't you think that, especially if you go by the portion of the report that says that the U.S. economy only added 69,000 jobs in May 2012.

By Russ Koesterich: While last Friday’s disappointing monthly jobs report doesn’t herald the end of the US recovery, it’s a reminder of the recovery’s fragility and that improvement in the US economy will most likely continue to be slow and characterized by

Trader Mark submits:Still digging through the numbers but the first glance is very disappointing. A net 54,000 accounting for 83,000 private sector growth, vs. a 29,000 contraction in the public sector. The estimate for May was about 175,000 a few days ago before the ADP report Wednesday. Initial knee jerk in the S&P 500 is a drop from -0.3% in premarket to -1.0%ish. ISM non manufacturing report is up at 10 a.m.