This focus on a snapshot in time outside the broader context often creates a consensus of meaningless information. When payrolls grow by 160,000 in a month when 200,000 jobs were expected, a lot of negative commentary follows, as if a 40,000 miss tells us something about the strength of the labor market. Every month in the United States, several million new jobs are created, and several million old jobs end. A net gain of 160,000 or 200,000 is a very small percentage of that massive churn, and the 40,000 difference is a statistically insignificant piece of information.
