I found this article on ERE interesting. It is always nice to get an objective, not completely negative perspective on our current situation. Some points made by John Zappe:

• While unemployment is at its highest level since November of 1983 (8.5%), 4.4 million people were employed in March of 2009.
• That is just slightly lower than the 4.5 million people employed in January of 2009.

To be sure, John points out in his article that this number of hires nationally is well off the recent high of 5.63 million workers in July of 2006.

And I am pretty sure that for millions of folks that are currently unemployed, this economic data does very little to help.

With that said, many experts do believe that we are seeing some signs of recovery - although we probably have a long road ahead of us till we see the days of sub-5% unemployment rates.

What does this all mean?

Well if your glass is half empty - - maybe not too much.

But if your glass is half full...

• 4.5mm people employed in the dead of winter - WOW! This is a sign of hope for the unemployed.
• People are actually hiring recruiters - that is a positive sign. (And - baby boomers are still retiring, even if at a slower rate, creating more jobs)
• My 401k went up a bit. Better than going down.
• Summer is coming (I'm in Detroit, MI - nice weather is a big deal!)

I hope the rest of your week is productive and positive!