Saturday, May 7, 2011

Another encouraging jobs report

For two reasons.  First and most obvious, we have now had three months in a row of adding over 200k jobs and they are private sector jobs.  Second, unemployment went up slightly, which is actually good news because it reflects more people entering (or re-entering) the labor force.  This is a signal that the non-employed feel that it is worth their time to dip their toe back into the market.  For more details, see today's NYT account. CORRECTION: NYT changed their account and I need to change mine.  The labor force actually did not change all that much.  The unemployment rate is based on a household survey, which showed a small decline in employment.  But who are you going to believe -- payroll data from employers or phone surveys?  Does anyone actually answer phone surveys any more?

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