Okay, that's a data point. Let's flesh it out. First, it has to be pointed out that the unemployment rate is always at its nadir directly before the market pea

Okay, that's a data point. Let's flesh it out. First, it has to be pointed out that the unemployment rate is always at its nadir directly before the market peaks. So good job numbers only mean that the recession hasn't arrived yet, not that we haven't passed an inflection point where a recession is right around the corner. You could imagine a chart that looks like half of a parabola, where present day is right before the minimum. I made a terrible mspaint diagram to make this clearer: https://i.imgur.com/pYiMfUt.png https://i.imgur.com/pYiMfUt.png But also, there are major problems with even the data's ability to describe the current situation. For one, the jobs numbers regularly need to be restated as additional data comes in. It's not unusual at the start of a contraction in the business cycle for data from many months earlier to be revised sharply downward, revealing that the drop actually began sooner than anyone realized. For this reason jobs numbers are an extremely lagging indicator, with very limited value for predicting the future. Second, the "unemployment" number has a very particular definition which is more subtle than you think. It excludes people who are no longer looking for work. Fortunately, the government tracks statistics on the total proportion of the population currently working, and the dramatic declines in the headline unemployment number (10% to 4%!) look less impressive when plotted against the relatively minor change in the actual employment-population ratio. Notice the difference in the scales of the left and right Y-axes: https://i.imgur.com/wIjfVWo.png https://i.imgur.com/wIjfVWo.png You can play with the charting settings to get an even more vivid picture of just how little things are really improving: https://i.imgur.com/mq1H8kD.png https://i.imgur.com/mq1H8kD.png The unemployment number plummets because people have given up finding work. The idea that the labor market is tight and drawing in formerly unemployed people to the labor force is exactly backwards.