The recent BLS press release indicates that the US rate of unemployment rose to 5.7% - a 4 year high. Not surprisingly, the market is interpreting this negatively, but not as negatively as one might expect. I am increasingly coming to the opinion that the professional investment community sees 5% as the magic number - below is "good" and above is "bad". Probably above 6% is "ugly". By and large, the last 8 years have been characterized by fairly low rates of joblessness - between 4 and 6.3%. This has been interpreted as generally "good" by professional investors who prize stability (which means predictability) - 5% is a nice median number, but that has not been the general view of the broader population, who have by and large expressed great concerns about unemployment and the economy in general.
For individual investors (and the journalists who are their primary window on the world) unemployment is a very difficult number to isolate in terms of preference. Since 1951, the jobless rate has been as high as 10.8% (1982) and as low as 2.6% (1951). During what are commonly remembered as "good times" there has also been a dramatic dispersion in the rate. In the 1950s, the rate was as low as 2.6 and as high as 7.5%! In the 1990s, the rate was as high as 7.5% and as low as 3.9%. With "low" a very relative number, it probably is largely a matter of who your talking to on whether the employment situation is concerning or not. The old joke is probably correct - "it's a recession when your neighbor loses their job and a depression when you lose yours." My guess is that individual investors are largely concerned with the trajectory of unemployment - going down is "good" and going up is "bad".
My guess is that pretty much for everyone; If unemployment rates go above 7.5% - that's not consistent with "good times" (i.e. the 1950s or 1990s), so probably that's "ugly"by most people's standards.
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