WASHINGTON, DC-First the good news: the economy added 103,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate didn’t rise. Now the bad news: the economy only added 103,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate didn’t drop from its 9.1% high.

So goes it with this stop-and-start recovery. The news is better than the worst pessimists had feared--low numbers as prelude to a double dip recession--but it is not enough to really jump start the recovery, Cassidy Turley’s economist Kevin Thorpe tells GlobeSt.com. “The jobs report doesn’t scream ‘everything is perfectly fine!’ but it does help us push away from recessionary scenarios and back to slow growth scenarios,” he said. That said, 103,000 is a weak number. “The best thing you can say about it is that it could have been worse,” Thorpe says.

For the commercial real estate market, a deeper look at the figures holds some good news and a little bit of a disappointment for industrial.

Office-using employment grew by 74,000 positions, Thorpe notes. “That could translate potentially into 13,000-square feet of new demand.” Also, the retail sector added 13,600 positions.

However, manufacturing--which has been the bright spot for both the economy and commercial real estate--contracted in this period, falling by 13,000 positions. “It has been doing well for such a long period that this might just be a natural pull back,” Thorpe says.

Once the regional job figures come out, Thorpe believes they will show a disproportionate number of job gains in New York and Texas. “Also I think we will see growth in tech markets such as San Francisco and Silicon Valley. And yes, believe it or not, Washington, DC as well, due to growth in the private sector.”