CNN has an article examining the job market. As you can see by the chart, the unemployment rate is in a clear uptrend. Yet the bulls will just say that employment is a lagging indicator, and that the economy is improving. So maybe this report is just another brick in the wall of worry. Time will tell. I found this part of the article to be particularly enlightening:
Furthermore, many of the people who do have jobs are working only part-time. According to the Labor Department, if you add all the workers “marginally attached” to the labor force — out of work and not looking for work — to all those working part-time and those unemployed and looking for work, the unemployment rate rises to 9.7 percent.
Notice how relatively steady unemployment levels had been, even through the Iraqi incursion? Now, just when we are supposed to experience that fairytale post-war pick-up, unemployment takes off on what looks like another leg up! Businesses were certainly indecisive with all those war concerns, they couldn’t figure just how many more people to fire once the war was all over!