Why the US must create 150K jobs per month to stay even **
Job boom still a hope, not a fact
Economists expect that robust job growth is right around the corner -- but maybe not in February.
March 4, 2004: 12:41 PM EST
By Mark Gongloff, CNN/Money staff writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Though some economists hope Friday will bring blockbuster unemployment and payroll growth figures, there are few signs that the job market was much different in February than it was in January, when it was recovering, but far from full strength.
On Friday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its figures for February unemployment and non-farm payrolls growth. Economists, on average, expect that unemployment held steady at 5.6 percent and that payrolls grew by 125,000 jobs, according to Briefing.com.
Such job growth would be nothing to sneeze at. But the labor force grows by about 150,000 people a month, meaning that, even if economists' forecasts are accurate -- no sure thing, of course -- there would still be about 25,000 more people looking for work.
"It's not what we'd like to see," said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at LaSalle Bank/ABN Amro in Chicago, which expects 100,000 new jobs in February.
Twenty-seven months after the end of the last recession, payrolls are still 2.35 million jobs below where they were when the recession began, in March 2001, making this the longest job slump since the Labor Department started keeping track in 1939.
money.cnn.com |
