Good news: thanks in large part to Census hiring, April job creation almost made the minimum replacement rate.

The American economy added 290,000 jobs in April, which was much better than expected despite temporary hiring for the 2010 U.S. Census. Excluding Census workers, 224,000 nonfarm jobs were created, with the unemployment rate edging up to 9.9% from 9.7%, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Bad news: unemployment went up to 9.9%.  I’ll leave it to my readers to decide which is more important.

Moe Lane

PS: The general mood?  “That’s nice, but the stock market almost went for a dance off of the Grand Canyon yesterday.”

Crossposted to Moe Lane.