Geithner Sees ‘Progress’ in Job Market, Unemployment Declining
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner predicted the U.S. unemployment rate probably will be lower than 10 percent in a year and said the economic recovery is moving closer to a period of job creation instead of losses.
A Labor Department report that showed the smallest monthly job loss in almost two years is “progress, but not good enough,” Geithner said in an interview today for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.
Payrolls fell by 11,000 workers in November, less than the most optimistic forecast among economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Labor Department showed in Washington. The jobless rate declined to 10 percent, from a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October.
Asked about the chances that the rate will be lower than 10 percent in a year, Geithner said the probability is “quite high.”
“The key test is when you see companies across the country starting to create jobs and add to payrolls no fax pay day loan. We’re getting closer to that point — that’s the important thing,” he said. “The economy is now growing and growth seems to be gradually strengthening. You see pockets of real strength now in technology and exports and I think they are hopeful signs of progress.”
“Most economists would say that you’re going to have an economy that’s gradually growing over the course of the next two years and the unemployment rate will start to come down.”
Geithner and other Obama administration officials yesterday held a forum at the White House to brainstorm about ways to bolster job creation in an economy that lost 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007.
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