Looking for a reason to be gloomy about the economy? Really looking? New York Times economics reporter Louis Uchitelle has just the thing to get you frowning

National Review, April 10, 2006

* Looking for a reason to be gloomy about the economy? Really looking? New York Times economics reporter Louis Uchitelle has just the thing to get you frowning. He tries to debunk the idea that the economy has been creating about 200,000 new jobs each month. After his debunking, it turns out that the claim is, well, true.

But the numbers allegedly conceal a problem. The pace of new hiring has not been very fast; the reason that the numbers look good is that fewer people are being fired, or quitting their jobs. This might not look like bad news to most people. Most people might even prefer keeping their jobs to losing them and getting hired by someone else. But in the market for bad news, you have to take what you can get. This economy isn't good at generating such news.