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.

Most of us did not expect a sharp turnaround on the employment front in February. For the better part of two years, we've had painfully slow growth in employment. Then, in February, with many people snowed in for most of the time, things changed dramatically: Nonfarm payrolls increased by a whopping 192,000 and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.9%, as reported in Reuters.

The numbers were impressive. Private sector jobs increased to 222,000, up from 68,000 in January. Private service sector jobs increased to 152,000 from 33,000 in January. Government employment fell by 30,000. The average work week was steady. Hourly earnings rose one penny.

The Labor Department reported this morning that the nation's payrolls contracted by a net total of 95,000 in September. The latest rounds of layoffs from the government trumped what hiring was done in the private sector, leading to the rather nasty number.

According to the Labor Department, local governments jettisoned 76,000 jobs last month -- most of them in education. This cut was the largest by local governments in 28 years. Also, 77,000 temporary census jobs ended in September. Offsetting these two figures somewhat was the private sector, which added 64,000 last month.

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.

The price at the cash register ticked higher in October, though it was driven by the cost at the pump and on the lot.

Energy prices and new car sales (the highest in 28 years) pushed consumer prices upward in October, they're still cheaper than they were a year earlier. The Labor Department reports that consumer prices edged up 0.3% last month, a tad higher than the 0.2% anticipated. Take food and energy out of the equation, and inflation rose 0.2%, again ahead of the 0.1% that analysts expected.

Consumer borrowing fell for the eighth straight month in September. This record-setting streak is due largely to tightening by lenders, unemployment and the conservative preference to pay down debt rather than spend. This widespread fit of fiscal responsibility, economists fret, could prevent a recovery from taking root, since consumer spending is responsible for 70% of the U.S. economy. This conventional thinking, of course, overlooks the fact that an eventual increase in spending that isn't fueled by consumer spending will yield a recovery that's more likely to last.

According to the Federal Reserve, borrowing fell at an annual rate of $14.8 billion in September -- it's biggest drop since July and much larger than the $10 billion predicted by economists. The behavior is exactly what you'd find in people worried about losing their jobs or focused on rebuilding safety funds and investment portfolios. Those who want to borrow are finding banks won't be complicit this time, as they clamp down on lending practices.

Job losses continued to mount in September. Unfortunately, the numbers are even worse than expected.

According to the ADP National Employment Report, employers shed 254,000 jobs in September. Analysts had been expecting to see the number of job losses at 200,000 in the month.

Retail sales gained a seasonally-adjusted 2.7% in August, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. This follows a 0.2% decline in July. The August results beat analyst expectations soundly, lending support to talk of a recovery. The Cash for Clunkers program is cited as contributing to August sales.

Without autos, sales increased 1.1%, still ahead of the anticipated 0.4% gain. Take gas out of the measure, as well, and retail sales grew 0.6%.

Inventories fell in July, for the twelfth month in a row, with the 1% decline a tad higher than the 0.9% anticipated by many economists.

The rate at which jobs were cut slowed in August, but the gap to be filled will be with us for a while. With 14.9 million people looking for jobs according to Moody's Economy.com, the unemployment rate won't hit 5% -- considered "normal" -- until 2014. To put this in perspective, we still have one presidential election and two mid-term contests between now and a full employment recovery.

Data published by the Department of Labor Friday puts the unemployment rate at 9.7%. In December 2007, it was only 4.7%. And, as BloggingStocks reported on Friday, it could pass 10% by the end of 2009. For teenagers, the unemployment rate has reached 26%. The number of job-seekers who have given up completely is above 750,000 -- the highest level since the Department of Labor started keeping score in 1994.

As we saw this morning, companies cut 298,000 jobs in August, according to ADP. The forecast was for 250,000 jobs lost. The report also revised last month's decline to 360,000.

Well, the Labor Department's report is due out in two days, and it may show a loss of 225,000 jobs, according to a Bloomberg News survey.