Published on 1st November 2012
There have been 45 monthly employment reports since Barack Obama was inaugurated president. Number 46 will the biggest of them all. Not in terms of significance for what it tells us about the economy; on that score, every report is about the same. They provide important guidance on whether the job market is getting better or worse, and in something close to real time, but are subject to revision and weird statistical blips, and thus are only one piece of a complex economic puzzle.