The latter half of this week before Friday's market open is perhaps not the best time to gauge the U.S. stock market's strength.

And the reason is obvious enough: look for institutional investors (IIs) to take some money off the table ahead of Friday's non-farm payroll employment report for October from the U.S. Labor Department.

Now that the U.S. economy is growing -- GDP grew at a 3.5% annualized rate in Q3, according to U.S. Commerce Department data, one key question for investors large and small is: Is the U.S. economic expansion sustainable?

Investors can immerse themselves in data on consumer spending, retail sales, new home sales, auto sales, and factory output etc., and all of those provide clues, no question. But if you're time-pressed and you want one metric to gauge the U.S. economy's likely health 6-9 months from now, monitor: monthly non-farm payrolls, as tallied by the U.S. Labor Department. I.E., how many jobs the U.S. economy lost or created in the previous month.

The U.S. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill that would extend unemployment benefits in all states by 14 weeks.

As of late Wednesday, the bill had paused in the Senate, as members offered various amendments, some of which are designed to limit the allocation. If passed, the bill would then have to be reconciled with a House bill passed a month ago that extends benefits by 13 weeks in high-unemployment states.

The unemployment rate increased in 23 states in September, with 43 reporting job losses for the month (though not at an accelerating rate). This does signal that we're (hopefully) in the early stages of an economic recovery ... though this can also mean that some job seekers have just given up (and are no longer counted).

Layoffs have slowed down a bit, but companies aren't crazy about taking on new bodies. So far, 600,000 people have dropped out of the hunt. Unemployment now sits at 9.8%.

Some of the jobs that have disappeared through this recession are gone forever, it seems. Even when the market turns, and even gains momentum, we could be stuck with a fairly weak employment market for a while. The recovery will take longer than we'd like, putting more distance between now and the top of the next market run. We've lost 7.2 million jobs since December 2007, and the predictions of some economists that we'll get them back by 2014 may actually seem optimistic.

Unemployment is at 9.8%, and it's expected to clear 10% early next year. Then, we have the specter of a jobless recovery with which to contend. "Full employment" is often considered to be an unemployment rate of 4% to 5%, but it could be a while before we get there. The last downturn, following the dotcom bust, resulted in a peak unemployment rate of 6.3% in 2003 ... and we're already well past that.

Why is the recovery going to be such a grind? Check out the four major reasons after the jump.

It's going to get worse before it gets better, according to Stone & McCarthy Research. Early 2010 has "the more troublesome outlook," as the economy will have to walk on its own, the research firm says. This year, it's had a pair of crutches: tax credits for first-time home buyers and the cash-for-clunkers program. So, if the stimulus hasn't taken hold by the end of the year, the first quarter could be a bruiser.

The firm adds that "continued growth in aggregate demand" is needed, bringing the discussion back to consumer spending . . . which is where it will always land. We're likely to see the 3.2% growth rate from July through September drop to 2.4% at the end of the year because the crutches will have been gone. And, let's not forget that unemployment is expected to break the 10% level next year.

We've watched stock market numbers bounce around for two years. Unemployment stats have served as unpleasant reminders that, for some, leading indicators haven't translated to reality. We look for so many ways to understand the brutal economic environment with which we've had to contend, and all the choices can make your head spin. So, let's make it simple. Here are eight ways to tack a label onto the financial world in which we live.

1. Lost market value
Total stock market losses from October 2007's top to March 2009's bottom: $11.2 trillion
Total gains in the stock market since the bottom: $4.6 trillion
Lost ground: $6.6 trillion

2. Bad days
Percentage of the 10 worst days in history for the Dow Jones Industrial Average that happened in 2008, by point drops: 60%
Percentage of the 10 worst days in history for the DJIA that happened in 2008, by percentage drops: 30%

3. Mutual funds
Value of mutual fund assets at the end of 2007: $6.5 trillion
... and a year later: $3.7 million
Lost value: $2.8 trillion

But, it got a little better at the end of August 2009: $4.5 trillion (value of assets)

Is it time to rethink the U.S. job creation paradigm? It may very well be.

The Obama administration is said-to-be weighing whether to propose a corporate tax credit for new hires and extending unemployment insurance and Cobra benefits in light the nation's job creation drought, The Wall Street Journal reported(subscription required.)

The United States is not alone. We just saw the unemployment rate creep higher to 9.8% for September, and the rest of the world is coming with us.

The worldwide recession is still circling the globe, it seems, leaving slashed jobs in its wake. While the rise in unemployment is essentially a fact of life, how countries are responding to it differs widely. Some are spending aggressively to protect jobs; for example, by chipping in some extra cash to pay for shorter work weeks.

In the 30 countries comprising the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), unemployment is as low as 3.2% in the Netherlands and as high as 17.6% in Spain, as of July 2009.

Unemployment is at its highest level since 1983, hitting 9.8% last month. The Department of Labor announced that 263,000 jobs were lost. This follows a revised loss of 201,000 jobs in August (lower than first reported). Nobody expected the August unemployment reprieve to last, and the increase suggests that the forecasted 10.3% unemployment rate for early next year will be realized.

Originally, the forecasted unemployment drop for September was 175,000, according to Bloomberg News, with individual economists surveyed reporting in a range of 100,000 to 260,000.

The Labor Department reported that initial claims for unemployment rose to 551,000 from 534,000 in the previous week, much more than the 5,000 economists had expected. The number remaining on the rolls fell by 70,000 to 6.09 million, but this statistic likely is unreliable because of all the people who have exhausted their benefits.

Congress has added 53 weeks of benefits on top of the the usual 26 weeks. Now with thousands of people having exhausted their benefits, Congress is considering extending benefits for another 13 weeks.

Lincoln, Neb., is the best place in the country for job-hunters. A new survey by headhunting firm Manpower (NYSE: MAN) reports that 21% of employers there plan to add employees in the next quarter, with only 4% looking to cut. That 17% spread (which Manpower calls the "net employment outlook") is tops in the United States.

Flint, Mich., on the other hand, is at the other end of the spectrum: 26% of employers are planning to chop jobs, while only 9% are forecasting new positions.

Immigrants to the United States with unique or valuable skills are starting to complete the roundtrip. Economic pressures and a difficult job market here have led many to return to their native countries to pursue new opportunities. This is particularly the case with immigrants from India and China, whose economies are growing this year. Meanwhile, unemployment is 9.7% in the United States right now – and likely to hit 10.3% early next year.

China's gross domestic product is poised to increase by 7.5% by the end of 2009, with India's up 5.4%. In the United States, on the other hand, GDP is forecasted to drop 2.6%.

While we may be focused on unemployment in the United States, the loss of jobs has become a truly global affair. Next year, unemployment rates in the industrialized world are expected to hit their highest levels since the second world war, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Projections put the jobless rate for the 30 countries that belong to the OECD at 10% in the second half of 2010, which translates to 57 million people without jobs. Unemployment reached its highest post-war level in June at 8.3%. The organization calls the short-term outlook "grim," especially with the early stages of a recovery next year anticipated to be cautious.

It's a stat for the era, and probably for the ages: the number of open jobs declined 50% in the past two years, to a seasonally-adjusted 2.4 million in July, Marketwatch.com colleague Rex Nutting reported Wednesday. Read the full government report by clicking here.

Equally sobering, in July there were 6.05 applicants for every job opening. To show you how much the U.S. job market has deteriorated, and how much slack there is in the labor force, in December 2007 there were just 1.72 unemployed people for every job opening.