I've been a big fan of John Crudele for many years; he's one of the few good things about Rupert's NY Post, the most highly used black and white at the Fulton fish market.

His columns on employment should be on the must-read list of every recruiter. Here's what he wrote about the recent unemployment statistics.

But just in case you're not a link clicker, here's the jist of his column and why you can't trust the government's numbers on unemployment:

I have written often about how the Labor Department uses assumptions that it calls the Birth/Death Model.

The Birth/Death model is the government's guess as to the number of new companies being formed or going out of business in each month of the year.

And, guess what? The Labor Department assumes that there is a net gain in new companies in each and every month - except January.

In fact, government statisticians subtract an enormous number of jobs out of their total count each January.

Then the media grabs hold and its downhill from there...

Stop the madness: Click on the links, question the messages, question the numbers!