"The underlying trend looks too strong to be consistent with all this news of recession that we've had," he said.

And that makes the job of detecting the underlying trend in productivity more difficult.

The important thing to remember is that spikes do not say anything about the underlying trend in employment.

"It's difficult to be negative on this report, but there are some real questions in it about the strength of the underlying trend."

The financial people are beginning to worry about an underlying trend.

There's no easy way to tell whether a specific job was created as a result of fiscal policy or the underlying trend in the economy.

The first step is to consider the underlying economic trend.

Share prices follow a random walk without any underlying trend.

But the central bank's tone about the underlying trend revealed a growing concern.

But volatility can make it hard to determine if an underlying trend has changed.