The unemployment rate today hit 5.7%, the highest in 4 years. This once again shows how the economy is weakening and probably in recession, but not a severe one just yet. Below I am going to explain as simply as I can how the job creation numbers/unemployment rate are calculated, as I consistently see misunderstanding here on these issues.
First, both the unemployment rate and job creation numbers are determined through surveys from the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics). They are not calculated from unemployment filings or from those currently on or just kicked off of unemployment. The BLS calls and asks if you are employed, if not they ask have you actively searched for a job in the last X period of time. If you have no job, but have looked for one you are unemployed. They will then ask those that have not looked for a job if they would like to have one but are discouraged from looking (this weeds out potential job seekers from say the retired or stay at home parents). The unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers and people working part-time but wanting full-time work is reported every month as U-6 (currently around 9%).
The job creation number is really convoluted, but is calculated from a survey of larger employers to determine how many jobs were created/lost in the previous month. To make up for the fact that the vast majority of Americans are employed by small businesses, the BLS came up with the flawed birth/death adjustment to attempt to estimate creation/loss from the unsurveyed. While the intention is good, in practice it would be nearly impossible to make a model that could withstand the considerable number a variables involved in job creation for small business and thus the job creation numbers must always be taken with a grain of sea salt, but the unemployment rate is a fairly accurate number once you know what they are actually reporting/measuring (and why I cite U-6 above). I hope this helps without being too long or getting into other complexities.