Employment and unemployment always go up and down. Students aren't counted and the unemployed who are going back to school because they can't find anything are not counted. Likewise, the lower end worker that has given up and gone on welfare pretty much permanently isn't counted. But these have always been with us and really aren't (IMO) a wotrhwhile indicator of the health of the economy and employment.
I would be much more interested in seeing the number of individual tax returns filed and the average reported income compared to previous years (perhaps broken down by employment category), but I never seem to find these reported. This would give a truer picture of how healthy the employment market and economy really is (or isn't). Total tax revenues, both Federal and State, would also be a good indicator IMO, broken down by State, region, and overall collections. It's quite possible for one area of the country to be booming and another in a near depression. I wonder where one would find these statistics?