The recession is over? - "Yes .... but"

NBER’s Hall Says Payrolls Make It ‘Pretty Clear’ Recession Over

Excerpt:

The biggest increase in employment in three years makes it “pretty clear” the deepest U.S. recession since the 1930s has ended, said the head of the group charged with making the call.

Payrolls rose by 162,000 workers last month, the third gain in the past five months and the most since March 2007, figures from the Labor Department showed yesterday in Washington.

“I personally put lots of emphasis on employment,” Robert Hall, who heads the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, said in an interview. “I would say ‘pretty clear’ is a good description” for whether the economic contraction has ended, he said.

Among the top indicators the group uses is payrolls, according to its Web site. The government revised the January and February job count up by a combined 62,000, putting the March gain at 224,000 after including the updated data.

“It’s great news that employment has finally stopped shrinking,” Hall, a Stanford University professor, said.

Today’s report showed the payroll count from the government’s survey of businesses and the employment numbers from a separate survey of households have both been heading higher, Hall said.

“That is looking better now,” he said. “I think the odds favor a continuing expansion in employment, but I don’t have great confidence.”

Despite strong jobs growth, unemployment rate stays the same



Excerpt:

Forecasters had envisioned a stronger number for March, but those predictions were based on more government hiring by the U.S. Census Bureau than happened.

"Even after adjusting for the 48,000 temporary census workers hired and a rebound effect from the February snowstorms, this number suggests an increase in underlying payroll employment," Christina Romer, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a statement.

Nationally, the census will be a steady job creator for several months. The Commerce Department expects to hire at least 600,000 temporary workers this year to staff the decennial survey.

Comment: Might be over ... but still painful for the unemployed. Temporary census workers? Big deal!