Jobs Expand by 151,000, Unemployment Steady at 9.6%; Birth-Death Methodology Changes for the Better; Reflections on the Numbers

From a few days ago, but a good breakdown and analysis:

``This is the first respectable jobs report in years. The reports earlier this year were padded by part-time census hiring. This report was all private hiring, a very good thing. However, it is important to put this into perspective. It takes approximately 125,000 jobs a month just to hold the rate steady. Here we have +151,000 and a falling participation rate with the unemployment number flat... This month's rise in jobs was fueled by retail hiring. Retail hiring is not sustainable. Nor is the rise in manufacturing. We might see a few more months of this (or not), but this is highly unlikely to be the start of something big or sustainable.''