David Rosenberg, Chief Economist at Canadian investment firm Gluskin Sheff, was recently interviewed by CNBC. He makes some excellent observations about the unemployment statistics. Here are a few of the highlights:

• The “unemployment rate” is 9.5%, but the U6 unemployment rate is 16.5%.  (U6 encompasses workers not explicitly counted in the unemployment figure, e.g. workers who have had their hours reduced.)
• Currently, nearly 20% of personal income in the United States is attributable to government benefits.
• 9 million jobs have been destroyed during the current recession.
• 2.5 million people have been pushed into part-time work.

He characterizes the economic outlook as “the mother of all jobless recoveries”. Not particularly optimistic, but we should point out that Rosenberg was one of the few people with the foresight to predict the housing crisis and credit bubble.