According to some analysts, it's far from jobless. There are two major measures of employment and job creation: the establishment survey and the household survey. The key difference is that the establishment survey doesn't include self employment. According to this Bear Sterns report:

The missing part of the strong picture is a rise in the establishment survey of employment. According to this survey, the number of jobs in the US non-farm establishments fell 74,000 in 2003 (verses the 1.5 million increase in the household survey).

The California Employment Development Department has noticed a similar difference between the two surveys.

California’s unemployment rate was 6.4 percent in December, down from a revised 6.5 percent in November, the state Employment Development Department (EDD) reported today. A year ago, in December 2002, California’s unemployment rate was 6.9 percent.

According to EDD’s survey of employers, payroll employment in California fell by 8,400 jobs over the month, for a total of 14,432,400.

According to the separate survey of households, the number of Californians holding jobs in December was 16,556,000, a record high for employment. This was an increase of 39,000 from November, and up 265,000 from the employment total in December of last year.

The number of people unemployed in California was 1,126,000 – a decrease of 30,000 over the month, and down by 80,000 compared with December of last year.

Still not enough? How about this report from Congress's Joint Economic Committee:

The unemployment rate fell to 5.7% in December, far below its summer peak of 6.3%. Both initial and continuing jobless claims for unemployment insurance have declined substantially since early May, indicating improving labor market conditions. Over the past five months, payroll employment increased by 278,000 jobs, with 1,000 workers added to payrolls in December. The survey of households, used to calculate the unemployment rate, shows even stronger job gains in the past five months – 786,000 – continuing the large discrepancies between the two employment surveys.

This chart shows the difference between the surveys pretty dramatically.

Interesting stuff.