After years of financial trials and hardships (and that’s putting it lightly), economists may finally have some good news. U.S. companies created at least 175,00 new jobs last month, and economic projections look hopeful. “The US has suffered from unusually bad weather in recent months, which has contributed to a recent slowdown in the labor market,” analyst Joseph Lake tells Forbes. “The acceleration in job growth in February suggests that, despite this recent softening, the U.S. is continuing to make slow, fitful progress as it recovers from the worst recession since the Great Depression.”
New technologies and industries are contributing to American job growth. Product lifecycle management, for example, is currently a $25 billion industry. That value is expected to increase significantly, and the increased demand will likely create new jobs.
The Obama Administration revealed similarly optimistic data on Monday. “Under a White House projection, the U.S. economy is expected to expand by 3.1 percent this year, faster than last year’s 1.7 percent. Growth would pick up to 3.4 percent in 2015,” Reuters reports. Obama’s annual economic report, in fact, was filled with promise. Bloomberg summarizes the report: “The unemployment rate has dropped to the lowest levels in more than five years, deficits have been cut by more than half, housing is on the rebound, manufacturers are adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s, and exports are accelerating.”
Others warn that the president — and American people — shouldn’t get ahead of themselves. The news is good, but not great, experts say. Analysts do, however, concede that the improving numbers safely suggest that conditions are highly unlikely to spiral out of control. (In other words, economists do not fear another economic recession any time soon.) Economic troubles at the end of the year, analysts add, can be chalked up to extreme weather. “The improvement last month led some experts to conclude that a hard winter, not a fundamental downshift, was the prime mover behind the economy’s lackluster performance at the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014,” The New York Times explains.
Numbers make it perfectly clear: within the last couple of months, the unemployment rate did rise slightly. However, some suggest that this may actually be a good sign. According to The New York Times, “They [financial experts] interpreted the uptick as a sign that more Americans were seeing signs of improving job opportunities and returning to the labor force.”
