Roughly one year ago, many of us were encouraged by a string of positive jobs reports which showed the economy was adding on average 275,000 jobs per month. And then came the spring swoon, ushering in a long stretch in which the economy struggled to add even enough jobs to keep up with population growth. While the unemployment rate continued to fall slowly throughout the year, much of that progress was due to workers dropping out of the labor force altogether.

So while the Labor Department’s employment situation reports have been generally positive since November of last year, economy-watchers have been wary of declaring the beginning of a robust labor market recovery just yet, especially when tax increases and spending cuts are almost certainly taking some of the spring out the economy’s step. And with today’s announcement from the Labor Department that the economy added just 88,000 jobs in March, those fears would appear to be legitimate.