Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

More good news on the jobs front Friday. Along with the regional business survey and the latest layoff numbers, this makes three strong jobs reports in a row. There's plenty to disagree with in the local papers, but it's hard to say they've been out of the loop on this story.

I don't have time to do so here, but when the next jobs report comes out, I want to see how it's reported. There are two competing surveys: the household survey and the business survey. Bruce Bartlett wrote a fine piece last week about the discrepancy between the two, and how the household survey will tend to be ahead of the unemployment numbers.

Still, it's interesting to note that when the unemployment rate was going down, it came before the "but" in all the news stories. This month, when the rate stands still, but payrolls expand, it's after the "but." When the rate went down, we heard that this was due to people dropping their job searches. Funny then, that we don't hear about the rate not dropping because people are entering the force, re-starting their job hunts.