Here is some good news. The Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 151,000 jobs in October. Plus, there were revisions for the previous two months, with private employers adding 107,000 jobs in September and 141,000 in August. This data were reported in the Wall Street Journal.

The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 9.6%. A broader measure of unemployment which includes people who stopped looking for work and those settling for part time jobs was at 17% for October.

Perhaps no nation expends more effort toward measuring its economy than the United States.

GDP, consumer prices, industrial production, housing starts, corporate earnings, retail sales, job creation...the financial world receives a continuing stream of information that helps Wall Street set the price for various asset classes, the chief among these being stocks and bonds.

Moreover, most of the key statistics are widely-known, long-standing indicators of economic activity. Others, however, are lesser-known -- but often equally telling -- barometers of the nation's health. One of those involves unemployed workers.

The 13% threshold

The U.S. Labor Department announced that in December 2007, 7.66 million adults were unemployed, a 13.2% increase from December 2006, when 6.70 million adults were out of work.

The significance? In nine previous economic cycles since 1950 with a 13% rise, the annual rise in unemployed adults has signaled a recession every time, The New York Times reported.

With Wall Street still digesting the latest round of sub-par economic data even as it braces for potentially more, economists and analysts said investors can look forward to one 'certainty' in the weeks ahead -- market volatility, as the financial community gauges the U.S economy's probable economic path for 2008.

Market bears will cite the housing sector's recession, related mortgage and asset-backed defaults, slumping corporate earnings and consumer spending, high energy prices, and uncertain job growth as reasons the Dow and the broader markets are likely to continue to fall in the weeks ahead.

Market bulls will cite solid corporate earnings from companies in international markets, relatively low inflation, a declining trade deficit, the fair or undervalued price of some U.S. equities, and the U.S economy's ability to adapt as reasons the markets may reverse their slide in early 2008 and head higher.