THERE'S a short term and a long-term story in today's job numbers. The stock market did not like the short-term story, and fell sharply as a result. But the short-term news is not as bad as it looks, while the long-term news is actually quite disturbing.

Let me explain. The sharp deceleration in employment growth in the last two months probably does not point to a sudden slowing in economic growth but rather tells us that the more brisk pace of growth earlier this year was unsustainable because much of it was due to warm weather. A useful gauge is the number of people not working because of weather. Morgan Stanley says this tally was unusually low during the winter, but in April it returned to normal levels. This suggests the weather payback effect is largely over.

A second factor technical factor is that there were only four weeks between the March and April periods during which the Bureau of Labour Statistics counted the number of jobs, which often reduces the measured total of new jobs created. And finally, while the decline in employment as measured by the household survey was troubling, it does not portend weakness ahead; household employment has run well ahead of payroll employment in the last 12 months and some retracement was in store.