Ref. BLS Employment Situation (+242,000, unemployment @ 4.9%) for February.

The theme remains unchanged as the relatively strong dollar continued to pressure people who make things and mine things and reward people who educate and cure other people, provide professional services to other people, sell retail items to other people, construct things within which these people can service other people; and then when everybody’s pooped from all that doing of business, provide leisure and hospitality services to other people.

In other words, the strong USD bought a lot of stuff in February and a lot of people were employed to provide that stuff.

There is no change in the economic backdrop from an employment standpoint.For most of the last year we have noted that the ‘back end’ of the economy is “servicing itself”, and that theme continues.