The jobs market is getting worse and white-collar layoffs piling up

The economy shed 92,000 jobs in February, while white-collar woes worsened and long-term unemployment rose

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The language of Friday's monthly jobs report makes the headline number sound like a nonevent. Total nonfarm payroll employment "edged down" by 92,000 in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, while the unemployment rate "changed little," up from 4.3% to 4.4%.

But the standardized verbal window-dressing partially obscures harder truths. Last month, the U.S. economy shed jobs, and this time, the trend was clear in the initial data collection, not just in after-the-fact revisions.

A close read shows the sector-by-sector shedding

The information sector lost 11,000 jobs — or double its average monthly loss over the prior year. Federal government employment fell by another........

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