The November jobs report was greeted yesterday with smiles and sighs of relief, which speaks volumes about how rotten the job market has been for a long time. Only 11,000 lost jobs! Praise heaven.

The report is hopeful if not yet happy news, in that it shows employment finally catching up with the economic recovery that has been building since the summer. Economic expansions always lead to some job creation, especially when the downturn and layoffs have been as steep as what the U.S. has endured in the last year.

The surprise so far has been how long it has taken the job market to come around—surprising especially to a White House that predicted a jobless rate peak of 8% if the $787 billion spending stimulus passed. President Obama called yesterday's report the best since 2007, which is true but is also like saying that this is the most tasteful season so far of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."

The report's details suggest that job growth will finally arrive in future months. The average work week climbed to 33.2 hours from 33.0, which means more workers are being hired back to full-time status. The jobless rate—which is determined by the household survey, rather than the business establishment survey—fell to 10%, from 10.2%. And the household survey, which measures more small businesses and home entrepreneurs, showed a gain of 227,000 jobs. In the early stages of the 2003 recovery, this measure proved to be a better indicator of future job-market strength than did the lagging establishment report.

On the other hand, most of November's job gains were in services or government. If the stimulus spending has had any effect, it has been to preserve government jobs. Private hiring remains weak. Construction, manufacturing and business professionals are still shedding jobs. At more than 28 weeks, the average duration of unemployment is now longer than it has ever been, and overall employment is still down some 7.2 million from its 2007 peak.

The news of a better job market couldn't have come at a better time politically given that Congress seems ready to waste more money on more government job creation. The same folks who planned the last stimulus now want to spend a few hundred billion on public works jobs, more aid to states, and another round job of jobless benefits. In some states, workers can now get paid for 18 months for not working. This will give many of them an incentive to postpone a job search even as their hiring prospects improve.

Meanwhile, the White House is thinking about paying home owners to weatherize their homes. Cash for caulkers, we suppose. Now, that'll put millions back to work.

The real message of the November report is that the job market is healing on its own, if Washington will simply let it happen. If Democrats want faster job creation by next November, they'll do nothing at all. Stop imposing new taxes on estates, payrolls, insurance, device makers, drug makers, small business, you name it. Start over on health care. Adjourn for the year, spend December with the family, come back in 2011. And watch Congress's approval rating rise.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574576203733082212.html

*I can hear that familiar song Hussein will sing;
Check's in th' mail!

how nice of WSJ to realize that the laissez-faire economists have been right all along!

I'd say the author of that article doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground.

It's the White house that doesn't know their arse from a hole in the ground:

"The surprise so far has been how long it has taken the job market to come around—surprising especially to a White House that predicted a jobless rate peak of 8% if the $787 billion spending stimulus passed."

I'd say the author of that article doesn't know his arse from a hole in the ground.

We could've just said it was a mental recession, but I'm afraid we would've only had a mental recovery!

Oh what will the Republicans do when the recovery is complete despite all their quibbling and uncooperative measures to the contrary?

Eat Crow I suspect.

I think I shall enjoy serving it to them!

Please feel free to conjure your conspiracy theories amongst yourselves.
I dont think anyone but Republicans are buying them anyway.

I have to go!

Kind of ironic that an article like that is in the WSJ, since Wall St., more than any other single institution, was nursed back to life by massive government intervention from a self-induced coma brought on by an orgy of recklessness.

I think they're still suffering from the delusion that they really understand what's really going on here. Until the middle class gets a little relief, the economy will continue to flounder.

Brooksley Born was the Cassandra that folks like the author still don't hear or remember.

-Kerry O.

Until we have congresspersons and senators that UNDERSTAND they are not an elite..

Understand that they are citizens just like the rest of us.
Understand that the money they spend comes from us.

Our economy will continue to bounce around like a pop-corn fart.

and no amount of jawing bout who done what to whom will change that...

Our government has a cancer in the brain.

Time for a lobotomy.