I've put together this simple chart to try to visualize how the unemployment rate may be an indicator of what's to come. When credit flows and people and companies can get debt to drive growth, you get more spend, more income, more highers, more employment, more jobs. However, as this starts to slow, it starts to drop, leading to potentially the economy slowing down. Companies stop hiring, and eventually firing. It might be interesting to get LinkedIn data here, as they probably have this dynamic reflected in Open Positions and People looking for jobs. What are your thoughts on the graph? Any other way you'd calculate the rate of change of the graphs (inflection points on employment/unemployment)?