Goldilocks or bust.

The US economy added 175,000 jobs in April, the BLS said Friday in a release that was amenable to a “just right” interpretation depending on investors’ collective mood.

The “whisper” number drifted higher into the print, which means 175,000 counted as even larger de facto miss than the undershoot versus the “official” consensus, which stood at 240,000.

April’s hiring pace, as initially reported, was the slowest since October. Revisions lopped 34,000 from February’s headline and added 12,000 to March’s. The three-month moving average is now 242,000, down from 267,000.

Gains were led by health care and social assistance. Transportation, retail and construction played supporting roles. Hiring in leisure and hospitality, which finally recouped the entirety of the jobs lost to the pandemic, was basically unchanged (5,000).

Needless to say, the bear contingent will seize on the headline miss to declare a recession imminent, but you can’t have it both ways. Well, you can, but not if you want to be intellectually honest: Either we want cooler headline NFP prints in the service of beating back inflation and keeping rate-cut hopes alive or we don’t. And 175,000 anyway isn’t a bad number. It’s a good number, actually. And it’s also a cool number in the context of the post-pandemic US macroscape.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% and the participation rate was unchanged. You could argue the increase in the jobless rate from the lows (0.5ppt) is a recession canary but that feels like a stretch. At least for now.

The best news for the Fed was the tepid AHE reading. Average hourly earnings rose just 0.2% from March (0.2019% unrounded), below consensus. The YoY pace, 3.9%, was likewise cooler-than-expected.

That should help offset any “stagflation” concerns triggered by the headline NFP miss, and it also allays jitters fanned by the ECI and ULC overshoots for Q1.

The household survey showed a meager 25,000 job gain for April following a blockbuster 498,000 increase the prior month.

It’s possible the magnitude of the headline miss will stoke recession concerns, and I do think the month-to-month deceleration was meaningful enough to merit attention. But for now (where that means right now, this month), 175,000 is just 175,000. Which is to say an objectively healthy pace of hiring. If it’s revised away next month alongside another big miss, then maybe we’ll have a problem.

Note that the AHE undershoot counted as the second cool print in three, which if nothing else serves as a counterbalance to wage-price spiral worries.

All in all, how you read April’s US jobs report depends on your disposition. If you’re a bull, it’s “Goldilocks.” If you’re a bear, it’s a recession harbinger.

As the Grail knight might put it, “You must choose. But choose wisely! For while the correct interpretation will bring you wealth, the wrong interpretation will take it from you.”