Some good news for everyone out there looking for a job: unemployment fell to a two-year low in March, down to 8.8%.

While an 8.8% percent unemployment rate is still nothing to celebrate, it is a clear indication that we are headed in the right direction. Companies hired new employees at the fastest two-month pace since before the recession began.

Home improvement giant Home Depot (HD) announced today that it would be hiring 60,000 seasonal employees nationwide as the company gears up for its busiest season, which is springtime.

Every year the company boosts its employees to deal with its peak season, and makes the hires in February and March to get the new workers ready when springtime rolls around and traffic really picks up at the company's retail stores across the nation.

In another sign that auto industry has bright day ahead of it, Ford Motor Company (F) announced today that it planned to hire an additional 7,000 employees over the next 2 years.

While this is definitely good news, the figures are still way down from where they were before the auto crisis ravished the industry. Ford currently has 42,000 compared to 103,000 just ten years ago.

The Conference Board issues a monthly employment trends index. In August, seven of the index components contributed negatively to the overall index, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The August index stood at 96.7, down from July's 97.4. "Employment growth has been slow lately, and the employment trends index suggests that it may slow even further this fall," said Gad, Levanon, associate director.

Tuesday's positive economic data point -- and it's a modest one, but we'll take it -- comes from the U.S. Labor Department: there were 5 potential applicants for each job opening in April, down from 6.2 applicants in March.

The reduction, part of the Labor Department's monthly job openings and turnover survey, also confirmed an uptrend in job openings. Even so, investors should keep in mind that 'job openings' do not mean 'hirings,' and the latest survey confirmed that hiring was basically flat in April compared to March. However, hiring is up about 12% compared to a year ago.

Further, the 4.3 million hirings in April minus the month's 4 million total separations roughly confirms the 290,000 net pay-roll increase in April.

Some highly successful businesses are husband-and-wife teams. Or, may even involve the hiring of the kids. Yes, the proverbial family business can be a powerful thing.

What's more, there may be some attractive tax benefits.

But of course, you need to know the rules (which, no doubt, can get complicated). So here are some things to consider:

Shares of internet search engine giant Google Inc. (GOOG) are trading sharply lower in after hours trading despite posting better than expected earnings for its first quarter.

Going into this afternoon's earnings release analysts had forecast $6.60 per share, with actual earnings coming in better than expected at $6.76 excluding special items.

Even though there are signs of improvement, the U.S. economy still remains sluggish. No doubt, this has been particularly tough for small business owners.

So to help things along, Congress has passed another stimulus bill: The Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act.

Unemployment has been a major concern for Americans over the past couple of years, but we get a bit of good news that job openings rose by 7.6% in January, compared with December.

Indicating that employers are at least starting to hire again, new job openings rose to 2.7 million. This is the highest level since back in February 2009.

According to a study released earlier this morning by the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, roughly 5% of employers believe they will hire during the second quarter. While this percentage is better than the same quarter a year ago, it is virtually flat from the first quarter. In fact, it is down slightly, as a net 6% of firms hired in the first quarter.

Keep in mind that the data doesn't measure the number of jobs. It measures the portion of firms planning to hire less those intending to lay off workers.

Even though the economy is still sluggish, things are much better than a year ago, when it looked like the global financial system was about to fall apart. In fact, it may be a good idea to expand your business.

Keep in mind that during times of big change, there are also big opportunities. However, to take advantage of these, you really need to go beyond your own abilities. In other words, you need to think about hiring.

Unfortunately, the hiring process is scary and complicated -- with many rules and risks. But an excellent new book can help out: Hire Your First Employee (get your free copy). Actually, I had a chance to talk to the author, Rhonda Abrams.

The securities business is highly competitive, probably the most competitive. The pressure to secure big clients and to bring the greatest trading profits is enormous.

Right now, Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) lead the industry in trading. Goldman has high-speed trading, which generates the largest profits per trade on Wall Street. Naturally, clients are attracted to Goldman because they can give them the best executions and generate the biggest profits in their managed accounts.

More than 20 million people received unemployment benefits last year, a new record. While they didn't all do it at the same time, the activity was enough to run the unemployment rate up to 10%, leaving everyone with the belief hope that 2010 just has to be better.

The severity that has characterized the job market since the woes of American International Group (AIG) and Lehman Brothers made headlines in September 2008 eased up a bit as 2009 marched toward its conclusion. The layoffs slowed down a bit, but a dearth of hiring means that we aren't seeing a pickup for the 5.8 million who've been out of work for more than six months ... let alone everyone else.

An unemployment rate of 10.2% means that serious jobseekers are using every tool they can find. So, it's not at all shocking that social networking tools top the list, with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter leading the charge. Openings are being tweeted, hints of a new position are being monitored and hot candidates are being hit up directly, even if they aren't saying they're on the prowl for a new gig. Social media is a tool to use in a job hunt but not necessarily the only one, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Instead, it makes sense to balance a search with many tools.

John Challenger, CEO, says, "The job search has changed radically over the last two decades with the advent of electronic mail, the internet, social networking, smart phones, etc. However, it is important to remember that all of these technologies simply enhance the job search; they will never replace the face-to-face connections that are critical to a successful search." But, he continues that "we feel that these new networking tools are essential and now advise all of the job seekers going through our program to open LinkedIn accounts and to consider other services such as Facebook and Twitter.

Retail hiring for the holiday shopping season was expected to be slow, and now we have the data to confirm it. According to data from Bureau of Labor Statistics (supplied to BloggingStocks by Challenger, Gray & Christmas), the retail sector added only 63,500 jobs in October -- in data that appropriately was not seasonally adjusted.

This is only slightly better than the 59,100 retail jobs added in October 2008. In the fourth quarter of last year, retail employment increased by a mere 384,300 jobs, with the retail industry turning in its worst holiday shopping season employment stats since 1989 (when it added 380,500 workers).