Economists were blown away by the Canadian jobs report, but in the U.S. they more or less got what they expected — modest growth, and not much fear of rate hikes yet.

“The report was a jumbled bag of mixed messages,” says BMO Nesbitt Burns. “February’s U.S. job increase of 66,000 disappeared in a puff of revisions today, marked down to a 2,000 loss. Meantime, a preliminary rise of 58,000 in nonfarm payrolls was pencilled in for March. Net, net labor markets are dead in the water. There is no upward trend in U.S. employment. The gains, such as they were, were all in services and government.”

Most industries are still cutting jobs, wages are barely rising, and unemployment bounced back up, says BMO. “Despite an evident turn in production, the manufacturing sector remained a drag on the employment picture,” CIBC World Markets says. “But a turn is in sight. The number of job losses in the last two months in that sector was less than half the pace seen in the winter. And the average manufacturing workweek lengthened sharply to 41.1 hours. Overtime shifts are typically a precursor to new hires.”

“The report leaned towards our view that the Fed can bide its time before opting to pull the trigger on the first rate hike,” CIBC says. “Historically, they haven’t been willing to move with the unemployment rate on the rise. That’s not just politics, since the added slack in the labor market pushes back worries of an inflationary-overheating. We don’t expect the first 25 bp hike until August.”

“There is no pressure on the Fed to do anything based on these critical figures,” BMO agrees. “A good month for U.S. employment is +250,000. We have not seen that for awhile and we will not see it anytime soon as company cost-cutting programs continue to delay the onset of rehiring in this recovery.”