What we consider MOST interesting is that not only are more aggregate job requests (or “reqs” as they say in the biz) crossing our desks, but more open positions are closing. And that is different. 

That’s what we’re seeing now: as Elli said above, companies do (and HAVE) reach a tipping point in terms of both need for talent and the amount at which they can tax their employees’ energy. Right now, it certainly seems like a lot of employers have been red-lining their workers for too long. People are leaving for greener pastures and the holes they leave behind are going to have to be filled by two and sometimes three new hires.

One last point: ADP reported a small but not insignificant drop in “job losers who completed temporary jobs.” (In simpler terms, temp workers whose assignments have ended — who names these things, anyway?) This number fell by nearly a half-million, so while it’s still early, we can infer two things: that temps are being kept longer and possibly becoming full-time hires. Besides, like it or not, temporary/project work is the future of the American workforce. We called that one, too, way back when.

And @Irony Curtain: any laugh is a good laugh. 

I am in full agreement with JT Pedersen’s observations below. There are some encouraging signs that things may be picking up, but many companies and individuals still want to hire freelancers as cheaply as possible (and I certainly understand the motivation behind this) so while there may be increased opportunities for gigs, one still needs to be able to prove value to be able to command decent compensation.

I too am highly skeptical of the government’s employment figures, and I speak from a non-partisan point of view. The definitions of employment have changed dramatically over the past few decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and many (if not most) of us freelancers and self-employed aren’t counted; we don’t qualify (usually) for unemployment, and the government certainly doesn’t know if I’m under-employed or unemployed aside from whatever earnings I’m reporting to the IRS on an annual basis and how these may change from year to year.  

When it comes to statistics, I personally put more faith in http://www.shadowstats.com of probably being more aligned with objective truth than the government’s extrapolated data.

Still, I too prefer to be optimistic and believe that opportunities are always available, or can be created, but it takes guts, drive and the willingness to compete!

I like your article and I look to the green shoots as indicators of things to come.  However I also think you’re providing an overly optimistic picture as regards economy and unemployment indicators.

I’ll wait to see what you have to say about China and Europe.  With two major segments seeing clear slowdown, their impact is not to be trivialized.

As regards the latest unemployment numbers, I believe they’re the latest in numeric fantasy:
We heard last week that unemployment dropped by 3/10% in September (0.003x).  According to the BLS’ own numbers (BLS: Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey): Total labor force size is 155,063,000.  We added 114,000 (net) new jobs.  And, doing the math, that’s a change of 0.07% (0.0007).

Since, reportedly the unemployment drop is not due to people leaving workforce this time, it is very curious how 0.07% (0.0007) change can be reported as a 0.3% drop in unemployment.  Don’t forget, we added ~125,000 due to population growth; but we’ll ignore the fact we’re not even keeping UP, let alone improving.

Until we see sustained monthly job ‘growth’ in the 2-250,000 range, we’re not really able to claim dramatic improvement.  The most positive take-away from your article: Your own business has doubled year over year.  That, I think is a very positive indicator!