I've posted a lot of negative comments about the economy, and I want to make it clear that I'm not in denial -- I know that there are a lot of very good economic signs right now. But there hasn't been a significant improvement in jobs.

The recovery we've been in, technically, since November 2001 has been a jobless recovery -- which all by itself is fairly odd. Now we seem to be approaching something even odder -- a jobless boom.

Jobless boom. I'm claiming credit for that phrase right now. If GDP growth and corporate profits stay strong, while companies continue to hire pretty much the way they've been hiring of late, I think you'll run into the phrase again. You may run into it a lot.

A jobless boom must seem like utopia for corporations -- big profits with no more pesky employees (and their pesky benefits) than there are now! Or maybe even fewer! (At least in this country.)

It may really be happening. Only time will tell.