I guess the point of the item was more about the reportage of these numbers in the NY Times. They casually toss around two different numbers and present them as either equivalent at times or disparate at others without really qualifying what it is they are presenting.

On your second point; in fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has very solid numbers on this. And they do have measures of the "discouraged" workers who, in fact, have removed themselves from the workforce for some reason (514,000 in March, www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). These workers affect the unemployment rate positively by artificially decreasing the rate as they detach themselves from the labor force.

Here are the numbers for the month of March:

Change in Payroll Employment:
+308,000(p) in Mar 2004

Change in Average Hourly Earnings:
+$0.02(p) in Mar 2004

Change in Average Weekly Hours:
-0.1(p) in Mar 2004

Change in Manufacturing Average Weekly Hours:
-0.1(p) in Mar 2004

Change in Aggregate Hours Index:
-0.1(p) in Mar 2004

Change in Real Earnings:
-$0.03(p) in Mar 2004

Very interesting, wouldn't you say? While the White House is flapping the first number all over the place, they want everyone to ignore the fact that every other metric of employment has dropped, from hours worked to real earnings, as we continue the seemingly inexorable slide toward a Wal-Mart economy. The unemployment figures can be really confusing and lets look at those:

Unemployment Rate:
5.7% in Mar 2004

Change in Unemployment Level:
+182,000 in Mar 2004

Change in Employment Level:
-3,000 in Mar 2004

Which indicates that while payroll employment is up, unemployment is up, too, and the overall employment level actually fell. This is supposed to be encouraging? The BLS also notes in it's summary (an interesting little read by the way, www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) that the unemployment was steady. 308,000 new jobs! the White House proudly trumpets, while the number of unemployed remains constant. Confused yet?