SNIP
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>Some people just have to nit-pick away the good news to try to make the economy seem worse than it is -- for politcal purposes, of course.

While I do qualify as a nit-picker, and am a charter member of the whiners club, I have no political agenda and the situation of the U.S. is of far less interest to me than that of my own country.

While I do SINCERELY hope that the employment situation gets better both there and here, I am dubious. I truly think that it is high time that people (like you and me) start asking some pointed questions about the many things that affect us directly.
You say that companies keep their hiring confidential, so the media wouldn't know anyway and so have nothing to report. But what about the people getting those jobs?... What about there being more traffic on the roads or more people on busses/subways or more people buying lunch at noon-hour or the countless other clues. And wouldn't the media itself be hiring too, giving them yet another clue that it might be more widespread?

I'm afraid that I am much more inclined to believe that we are being fed certain things by certain powers that be, all with the objective of them growing in richess and power while the average folks are kept quiet and disinclined to flex their own considerable power to change things.

Finally, given, as you say, that such numbers are typically revised later anyway, there is no rhyme or reason for the stock market to 'react' one way or the other. Yet it does! And what's worse is that when a company announces layoffs its stock value goes up, which is the very antithesis of the social impact of such news.