One barometer of how things are doing: service at the fast-food joints.
When the economy is bad, folks hold on to those low-end jobs and become reasonably competent in getting the food order right and with timely delivery. As conditions improve, those folks have acquired some talent and are able to find better-paying jobs, and the restaurant has to hire inexperienced help to replace them. Speed and quality suffer.
Yesterday I stopped to pick up a couple sandwiches to take home. The "fast food" didn't show up for nearly 15 minutes, and they got the order wrong.
And while we think of a 5+% unemployment rate as bad, last year Canada was bragging about how they had gotten unemployment DOWN to 6%!
