The current employment recession is by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms, and 2nd worst in terms of the unemployment rate (only the early '80s recession with a peak of 10.8 percent was worse).

This was well below expectations for payroll jobs, and the unemployment rate was higher than expected (both worse).

1) There’s no good news here. U6, the broader measure of unemployment, creeped down 0.1 percentage point to 15.8 per cent, but the margin of error contains little comfort.

2) The average duration of unemployment hit another new record, 39.7 weeks.

3) Local government employment declined again, and will continue to do so as the ripple effect rides out from banks to the federal government to state houses to municipalities.

4) The ancillary data provided little comfort: average hours and labour force participation were flat, as were the number of marginally attached workers.

5) The previous two months’ downward revisions were arguably just as worrying as the headline number — in the last few months we’ve seen upward revisions.