His job description

Acold splash of reality for President Trump came Thursday, and it should make him think twice before pressing ahead with some very risky economic policy ideas. Businesses created just 98,000 jobs in March, well below the 227,000 generated in February and far below an anticipated 180,000.

For perspective, average monthly job creation in 2016 was 187,000 and 226,000 in 2015.

This could be just a blip. But in the event that it’s a harbinger of things to come, the administration needs to start nimbly responding to changing conditions rather than plowing ahead with a strategy cooked up in the heat of an election campaign.

Such as: an attempted travel ban and anti-immigration rhetoric are already scaring away foreign tourists, dealing a blow to an industry that employs more than 7.5 million Americans.

Demanding the social media log-on IDs and passwords from all visitors, as the administration is reportedly contemplating, would further spook an already cooling market.

Then there’s the ailing retail sector, which has endured 30,000-job losses in each of the past two months. Threatened tariffs on Chinese, Mexican and other goods, which could easily set off a trade war, would kick stores when they’re down.

Another threat to employment Trump needs to get serious about: the growing role of automation.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin anticipated last month it would be “50 or 100 more years” before computers start taking people’s jobs.

Wrong. It’s happening now. Denial will not train people for the jobs of the future.

More promising, Trump promises to introduce a $1 trillion infrastructure program — possibly linked to a long-anticipated tax code overhaul.

Both must be focused and fast-acting, and aimed at boosting fortunes across the broad swath of the economy, not at enriching those who are already doing just fine, thank you.

Trump is obsessed with bringing back coalmining jobs, a shrinking sliver of the economy. And he never misses an opportunity to tout a new hiring deal with a car company or tech firm.

The real test of his job-creation chops will in the mundane numbers released by the Labor Department in the coming months.