Nathan:

Reuters Particpation Rate" This article advocates that the Particiaption Rate is a truer look at jobs in the US. Participation Rate is at the lowest since 1988 (another recessional period) and is a reflection of non Institutional Civilian Population, Unemployed, and Not in Work Force. Since they have been playing a numbers shuffle game at the BLS, it has been hard to get a handle on what is really happening except for this ratio which reflects growth, non growth, or negative growth in non Institutional Civilian Population, Unemployed, and Not In Work Force. You can not hide in this ratio what is really happening.

Participation Rate has been flat for four months now at 65.9%. Till it begins the upward trek, the growth in jobs is not enough to cover all of the three catagories I mentioned above. BLS tracks it; but, we hear little about it because it does not bode well for the economy. However while it is flat, the good news is that it is not dropping further. Daniel Gross over in TheFray wrote a nice little article also on this that pretty much vindicated my stance there.

I'm questioning how precise the "hours worked" statistic is. For people who do time cards it is probably pretty accurate, even though some (small?) fudging and fraud at the company level can be expected -- management bullying employees not to report some hours, not disputing reported times, etc.

However, there is the group of salaried employees which is either not reported in the survey at all, or (more likely) at their "nominal" hours (40 weekly). Any overtime systematically extracted from that population will not show up in the survey, and I have reason to believe it is on the rise. (Which is _not_ good.)

It should perhaps be called "hours paid".

In addition, this plot should be deflated by poulation growth numbers. It is hours worked/(# of people) that matters.

foo: "It is hours worked/(# of people) that matters."

Not to disagree with you (even though it may sound like it), but that's not necessarily so. If productivity were to increase to a large enough extent (not that it would by current appearances), subpar work fore growth could be sufficient to maintain or even grow production per head. That would require a distribution mechanism more comprehensive than through wages, however; in other words, a functioning welfare state.

Second objection: averages can be misleading. How about laying off 10% and extracting 10% more productive effort out of the rest (that would be 11.1% to be precise)?