US employment, which has lagged in an otherwise recovering economy, likely will begin rebounding early next year, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Sunday.
“Economists say ... that they think you’ll start to see net jobs created at the beginning of the year,” Geithner told NBC television, adding that the US economy could see jobs added “in the first quarter some time.”
The US economy is suffering the deepest recession in decades with crushing unemployment of just under 10 percent.
Officials said the US employment picture might have been even worse and released data last week showing that President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan has so far saved or created more than 1 million jobs.
The figures show 650,000 jobs were directly saved or created up until Sept. 30. Since the survey data only accounts for half the spending during that time, officials say the true figure of jobs created is more than 1 million.
Opposition Republicans, however, accused the president’s team of fudging the facts and concocting a “fantasy world” to disguise the failure of the stimulus plan, passed in the first months of Obama’s presidency.
Obama has promised that the economic recovery package would save or create 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.
The job figures released by the White House were based on detailed reports filed by certain recipients of about US$160 billion in stimulus money. In a speech last week to the Economic Club of Chicago, Geithner said with the exception of employment data, economic figures reflected a “broad and strong” recovery, with encouraging figures in consumption, investment, housing, construction and exports.
In percentage terms, the US economy grew at a seasonally adjusted 3.5 percent annual rate in the July-September period from the previous quarter.
The growth exceeded analyst expectations and marked the strongest quarter since the third quarter of 2007 when a US subprime mortgage crisis triggered a global financial meltdown.
Despite those encouraging economic signs, Christina Romer, chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, told lawmakers last week that the jobless rate was likely to remain “severely elevated” for some time even as the economy recovers from recession.
The recession’s impact on employment has been massive, she told a congressional panel, making it hard to recoup lost jobs.
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