Distortions of US Jobs Data, page-4

Barder,

The distorting impact of participation rates on employment statistics is old news. This, and the fact that employment is a lagging indicator, means that most traders don't pay it much attention.

If you are looking for signals of impending economic collapse that might make investing in gold a good idea, I suggest that you look elsewhere.


Afterthought: I am surprised that the gold bugs don't spend more time looking at data on bank failures in the US:
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

But maybe it will tell them things they don't want to hear.