Think of it as the looking-glass economy.

The stock market has been sinking since the beginning of the year and oil prices have plummeted, yet auto sales are at record highs and Federal Reserve officials are expressing confidence that the economy is on the upswing.

Bidding wars are breaking out for sought-after hires in software and technology even as corporate behemoths like DuPont, BP and Morgan Stanley disclose plans to lay off tens of thousands.

Measured by traditional yardsticks for growth, like gross domestic product, the American economy definitely looks weak. View it through the prism of hiring and employment, however, and the economy seems surprisingly strong.

“It is a real mystery how you can have nearly 300,000 new jobs created in December with the economy growing by 1 percent or less,” said Torsten Slok, chief international economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. “We can’t have this discrepancy for a long period of time.”