Another View of the Manipulated Jobless Number...

This time from the WSJ.  There's a lot of interesting material at the link, but to my point in a previous post:

If people without jobs become discouraged and stop seeking work, the unemployment rate will decline (other things being equal). On the other hand, if people become hopeful about future employment, job seeking will go up—as will the unemployment rate.

This way of measuring job availability is clearly flawed. One simple alternative would be to measure the labor force as the number of people with jobs. Unemployment would be determined based on increases or decreases in the number of people employed relative to historic job growth.

Sounds right to me...