U.S. News --- THE OUTLOOK: Jobs Picture Should Brighten in 2013
Plenty of dark clouds loom over the U.S. job market -- particularly the potential double-punch of tax increases and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff.</br></br>But if the U.S. can avert that Washington-made crisis, the outlook for workers finding jobs is actually looking pretty good for next year. For one thing, the damage of superstorm Sandy will have to be repaired, meaning jobs in construction and retail. Businesses, meanwhile, which have held off investing and hiring because of uncertainty over the fiscal outlook, might finally open their wallets. That means more jobs, too.</br></br>Employers have stepped up their hiring recently, adding 171,000 jobs in October and an average of 157,000 a month so far this year. That's a better pace than last year and the strongest job growth since 2006, Labor Department data show.</br></br>Of course, the recovery of the job market has been, and probably will remain, incremental. Job growth needs to be much stronger to actually make a big dent in unemployment, which remains high at 7.9%, though down from 10% three years ago.</br></br>The government's next snapshot of the job market, due Friday, will be distorted by Sandy, which devastated the Northeast in late October, leaving many jobless. Economists say Sandy could temporarily knock anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 off of the government's jobs tally for November, resulting in job growth of under 100,000 or even much less.