Graph by Haver Analytics (Click to enlarge). Friday's employment report is expected to show an increase of between 75,000 and 300,000 non-farm jobs (Bloomberg estimates). The upper end of this range would be good to see since job creation has been the bugaboo of this recovery. Some attention will be paid to the government sector where,on net,jobs have been lost despite hiring tens of thousands of census workers.
One concern do-it-yourself investors sometimes express to me is their weakness in understanding the macroeconomy. With that in mind I present an explanation of the unemployment rate calculation by Salman Khan. If you are not familar with his work you are in for a treat. You can practically get a college education viewing his youtube videos.
