Wildbill,
I don't like the way that they measure unemployment for a few reasons. One is I believe self employed workers have never been counted. I think part of the reason is due to self-employed workers have periods of no work for a few weeks and then lots of work. This is just the nature of the situation. I do think that the unemployment figures and the Conference board Help Wanted Index are outdated. First the major portion of the unemployment figures depends on persons filing claims. Well, if you are in the high tech sector like myself or my acquintances you will not be counted when your unemployment runs out. Furthermore, we know from surveys that finding a new job after getting being let go during the past few years has extended beyond the traditional measurements (don't ask me to quote but I remember a report of one company that does employment surveys). As far as I'm concerned I think a more precise method could be calculated, by comparing how many jobs are lost and how many new ones are created. To even make this more accurate, I would even categorize this figures by including firing and hiring salaries to look at the economic worth of both groups of workers that have been let go and hired.
Anyway, here's a bullish report from the Conference Board:
http://www.conference-board.org/econ...?press_ID=2284
Good Luck
Mark