Jobs Are Coming Back—and Soon

The rosier-than-expected unemployment numbers released today are encouraging, Floyd Norris writes, but it’s actually the very precipitous nature of the original falloff that makes him optimistic about the future. So many jobs were lost, Norris argues, that If employers want to fill any but the most meager of orders, they’ll have to hire, and fast. Hence, no jobless recovery.

When the reality of the recession came on so fast last year, Norris writes in the New York Times, employers “feared sales would collapse and that credit would be unavailable. In that spirit, they cut every cost they could.” And that included employees. Now, that kneejerk response “has left many companies in a position where they may need to add workers quickly for even a small increase in business.” Norris does caution, though, that he self-identifies as “the optimist.” (More Floyd Norris stories.)