Everybody's aim in an economy is not to have to work, or at least to work less, and to produce more. No one wants to work more and produce less. So what we want is negative jobs (people working less) with positive GDP (people enjoying more goods and services.)

In bad times, when there is a loss of productivity or where people stop working in the productive (private) sector and go to work for the unproductive (public) sector, you absolutely can have negative real growth with more employment.