Economists have been scratching their heads – no rude jokes, please – over a puzzle that has a bearing on everything from interest rates to the dollar.
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It's the contradiction between the reported GDP and jobs figures. So while the economy is apparently growing below trend as economists like to say, for which read veering toward a recession which prompted the Reserve Bank's pre-emptive rate cuts, new jobs are being created at an accelerating rate.
The only thing the two measures agree on is that the unemployment rate is relatively high and that's only because the working age population is growing slightly faster than new jobs.
Even then, going by the lacklustre GDP performance, jobs growth should be slower with unemployment rising faster than it is. It just doesn't add up.
Mind you, every statistic is out of date the moment it's published, although GDP is considered more up-to-the-minute because the unemployment rate is the upshot of what was happening a good six months ago, making it a so-called lagging indicator.
The sudden surge in the number of new jobs created in the past year led to questions being asked, and even the ABS began to have some self doubts, almost apologising for its sample. Not that it helped its case by changing the question it asks about looking for work.
I've seen slowdowns galore in my time but, while nothing marvellous, the jobs outlook doesn't feel nearly as bad as the sluggish growth in GDP suggests.
By a funny coincidence, the US has the same statistical story which is why markets are all over the place about when the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates. The timing of this will have a huge bearing on our dollar. In fact, its recent rise owes nothing to what we've done and everything to the drop in the US dollar as the Fed dilly dallies over when to raise rates.
Anyway, the US jobs front is going gangbusters, something you'd never guess from the stagnant, weather-affected GDP in the March quarter.
One reason, like here, is that wages aren't growing much. That keeps labour costs down and makes employers more inclined to hire. I'll buy that. Even so, hours worked were a record high in Australia last month, and bosses don't hire just because labour is cheap. Spending must be stronger than weakening GDP growth would have us believe.
Research by AllianceBernstein's Joseph Carson suggests it's the measure of GDP that's become the lagging indicator. It's the figure that's passed its use-by date.
"We think a data-reporting lag from the services sector may be the culprit," he says, pointing out statistics about it are "released with a lag of several quarters". Since the services sector is where the new jobs are coming from this would be even more marked in Australia.
And I suspect the ABS hasn't fully come to grips with the digital economy which is the services sector on steroids.
So if you want to know what the economy is doing, ignore GDP and look at the growth in jobs.
