Open Thread

June 5th, 2009 9:48 AM

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: job losses slow.

The U.S. lost fewer jobs than forecast in May, reinforcing signs that the deepest recession in half a century is starting to abate. Payrolls fell by 345,000, the least in eight months, after a revised 504,000 loss in April, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate increased to 9.4 percent, the highest since 1983, in part as more people joined the labor force to look for work...“This is heartening news,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, who forecast payrolls would drop by 450,000, matching the lowest estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. “The recession is very close to an end. The labor marker is still pretty awful, but vastly better than it was.”

Is this heartening news? Is the recession ending, and, if so, what kind of recovery is ahead? Or, are we far from out of the woods, and things are destined to get much worse before they get much better?