The New York Times ran a piece on cinco de mayo about the millions of people that are being hired right now. All we tend to hear from the news media is bad news about the millions laid off, the millions out of jobs, the millions losing homes, the millions who will die of swine flu. (So, that last one is unrelated, but bad news nonethless!) Meanwhile, according to the Times, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 4.3 million people were hired in February alone. Who knew?

“The best thing you can say about these numbers is it speaks to the dynamism of the U.S. economy, and the net negative number that we all traffic in masks that,” said Robert J. Barbera, chief economist at ITG, a research and trading firm. “Ninety out of 100 people who know the number — 650,000 were lost in February — think that means no one was hired and 650,000 were fired.”

In February — before the economy started to show the first faint signs of a possible recovery — there were three million job openings nationwide. And despite large new job losses likely to be announced Friday, there are still millions of job openings.”

Sure, the article goes on to talk about the availability of work at Wal-Mart and grocery stores, but they also mention hospitals, colleges, and technology big shot I.B.M. as places that are hiring. Basically, there’s hope! Even if it means reducing your salary like one man quoted in the article who makes half of what he used to, but says he is just happy to be working and could no longer stand to sit at home. The lesson here is to be flexible. Not many have the luxury to wait this recession out and hope to get their dream job back. It’s time to analyze what areas you’re willing to compromise on.

The down side, said the article, is that while jobs exist, there are four unemployed people for every one employment opportunity and that means competition. But as I’ve mentioned in columns before, it’s always during tough times where people are forced to be more innovative and more creative to get the job, to make the sale, to have success. So let’s enjoy this little bit of good news and see the competition that may be against you as a challenge to showcase your creativity and abilities and not another pot-hole in the road to employment.

CNBC also covered this bit of good news. Watch the clip which also mentions the issue of lowering your expectations and being overqualified (a topic I recently covered in my column.)