WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If forecasts can be believed, job growth in January will finally return U.S. employment to where it was before the 2001 recession and erase the jobs lost during President Bush's first term.þþEconomists say 190,000 jobs were created last month, according to the median estimate from a Reuters survey, boosting the working population to 132.5 million -- just above where it was when President Bill Clinton left office four years ago.þþIf achieved, the rise in payrolls will be the 17th straight month of growth and, together with an expected upward revision to employment through March 2004, should restore all the jobs erased during and after the 2001 recession.þþ``It is an extraordinarily long time to get (the jobs) back, but it was an extraordinary period of time,'' said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors.þþ``We had the dot-com bubble burst, we had a recession, we had 9/11, we had accounting scandals, we had a war -- you name it, we had it,'' Naroff said.þþThe Labor Department's closely watched payrolls report, due at 8:30 a.m. EST (1330 GMT) on Friday, is expected to show no movement in the nation's 5.4 percent unemployment rate, since better prospects are luring many Americans back to the job hunt.þþSince only those who are looking for work are counted as unemployed, the return of job-seekers can offset even a healthy increase in hiring and leave the unemployment rate unchanged.þþUPSIDE SURPRISE?þþDavid Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, said a surprisingly strong reading in the Conference Board's consumer confidence index, including a rise in the ``jobs are plentiful'' reading, bodes well for January hiring.þþ``It could very well be that ... nonfarm payroll number will offer up an upside surprise -- how else to explain this burst in sentiment?'' Rosenberg said.þþAnalysts struggled to forecast employment growth in 2004 and were often caught off-guard by strong hiring one month and weak growth the next. Forecasts for January in the Reuters survey of 33 economists ranged widely, from 30,000 to 230,000.þþA separate report by employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Wednesday showed planned job cuts fell by 15 percent in January and came in below the 100,000 level for the first time since August.þþFriday's jobs report is also expected to show a 0.2 percent rise in average hourly earnings, but the workweek is forecast to hold at 33.8 hours -- a level many economists see as still too low to prompt a big hiring surge. Employers usually make existing workers put in longer hours before taking on new ones.þþThe workweek ``has been one of the biggest disappointments of this labor market recovery. So every month I hold my breath hoping we see that picking up a bit,'' said Anthony Chan, senior economist at JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management.þþJanuary's report may feature a few quirks, including an annual revision. The Labor Department gave a first glimpse of the so-called benchmark revision in October when it said the economy added 236,000 more jobs than previously thought in the March 2003-March 2004 period. Analysts expect only a slight adjustment on Friday to that estimate.þþRetail employment may also show some statistical weirdness because of seasonal adjustment of the data. Statisticians had banked on holiday hiring by retailers in November and December, but more than 10,000 jobs were lost. As a result, the January retail numbers may show an artificial rebound simply because the usual post-holiday layoffs never happened.þþ``The seasonal factors are looking for people to leave ... and they are not leaving because they were never hired, so you should get a bounce-back,'' explained Chan. þþþþ
Source: NY Times
