It’s actually getting better.
The government is expected to report Friday that businesses stepped up hiring in December, a trend likely to gain momentum in 2011.Economists are predicting that employers added a net total of 145,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent.
Some are even more optimistic after a private payroll firm estimated this week that companies added nearly 300,000 jobs in December. Also encouraging was a report that fewer people applied for unemployment benefits over the past month than in any four-week period in more than two years.
A decline in layoffs has consumers feeling better about the economy and spending more freely. This past holiday shopping season was the best in four years.
UPDATE: Oh no. It’s worse than I thought. The unemployment rate has actually dropped to 9.4%, a sharper and larger drop than predicted.
More of this Obama-fail, please.
I’m just sayin’…
