Over the weekend (13 - 14 December 2008), Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam shared a piece of "good news" with Singaporeans - many jobs are still available despite the economic downturn.By that, Mr Tharman had a job well done - of saying something needless to say.Everyone knows that jobs will always be available in any country in any recession and it is impossible for zero hiring to occur anywhere.However, the fact that unemployment rate rose from 2.4% to 3.1% within the first-half of 2008 - statistics courtesy of the government itself - shows that new jobs created are not outstripping old ones lost, which is natural of a recession.Hence, there is no need to paint unnecessary rosy pictures, as if to pin the blame on Singaporeans for being "choosy" of not retraining or taking up new jobs.Another couple of questions that may interest the minds of some people are:1) Whether salaries have fallen in the midst of creating more jobs; after all, an employer may hire one more worker for every ten workers they supplant with a 10% lower starting salary to the replacements.2) Average time taken for a retrenched employee from his last day at work after receiving a "pink slip" to the first day he sits in on his new job; this may be longer than generally expected due to various nitty-gritty reasons like changes of company situations and tardy retraining schedules.Not all of the above information is evident or transparent.