Christopher Vecchio, Currency Analyst at DailyFX, comments on NFPs

"Data had begun to turn less bright the past several weeks for the world's largest economy, but no one expected to see a March labor market report of such a poor quality. Literally, not one economist, according to a Bloomberg News survey, forecasted that the US economy would only add +88K jobs last month; the low estimate was +100K. This double-digit print is the worst labor market report since the May NFPs released in June 2012, and it significantly undercut the consensus forecast of +200K. When adding in revisions (February was revised up by +32K, from +236K to +268K), the overall jobs change was -80K, relative to the consensus forecast. At first glance, the Unemployment Rate (U3) statistics appear to be a silver lining to this mess: March's rate fell to 7.6% from 7.7%, beating expectations. Similarly, the Underemployment Rate (U6) – those unemployed who are actively looking for a job, involuntarily part-time workers who want full-time work but have had to settle for part-time work, and marginally attached workers who want and are available for work, but are not actively looking – dropped from 14.3% to 13.8%. On the surface, both of these are indications of a strengthening labor market, but in context of the Participation Rate, which fell to a three-decade low at 63.3%, one thing is clear: Americans are leaving the labor market en masse, essentially giving up on their personal employment prospects after what has been a long period of despair since the global financial crisis started in late-2007. Accordingly, it is evident that the US labor market can no longer be viewed as improving, but instead, just barely treading water."