Nice summation of where employment stands

It's from economist Eric Lascelles (via WSJ):

"To get a proper sense of the job market, you need to take a holistic approach, not look at one single indicator," said Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management, noting that "the unemployment rate isn't much of a leading indicator for the economy and maybe not even for the job market as well....Your best bet is to look at the trend in job creation."

In that category, the current recovery trails previous ones by many benchmarks.

That reflects, in part, "a very big shift in the way that America runs," said Mr. Lascelles. He cites four factors behind today's fitful job generation: First, the glacial pace of the overall recovery; second, a sectoral mismatch of workers' skills to available jobs; third, a geographic mismatch, hastened by the housing bust, that leaves workers trapped in areas with few jobs; and fourth, rising efficiency in the work place. "Businesses have gotten savvier," he said. "They seem to be able to squeeze more productivity out of a diminished labor force."