>Job growth and decreasing unemployment are signs of an improving economy and vice versa - period.
>
>Curious - how do you measure decreasing unemployment and job growth?
>
>Again, because of how unemployment and labor participation and workforce to civilian population are calculated - you CAN have a context where an increase in the unemployment % is a positive indicator, depending on whether the other numbers hold steady or not.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

In any one period, the results can be misleading but when a trend continues for several periods it's as good a measure of the broad job situation as there is.

Jobs are more plentiful now than they were five years ago, period.

Yes, there are those who have seen increases in unemployment as a positive factor and vice versa.
But that's another story.