Job Market Picks Up, but Slowly
The job market is showing signs of life, though its slow recovery suggests unemployment will remain high for years to come.</br></br>Employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the biggest monthly gain in three years, with one-third of the growth coming from the government's hiring of 48,000 temporary workers for the 2010 Census. Despite those gains, the jobless rate held steady at 9.7% as new workers entered the job market and people who had previously quit the labor force returned.</br></br>The average length of unemployment rose last month to the highest point since record keeping began in 1948: more than 31 weeks. The number of workers out of work for six months or more rose sharply.</br></br>The latest report, which marks the third month since November in which payrolls increased, indicates the labor market is pulling out of a deep downturn that slashed more than eight million jobs since the recession hit in late 2007.</br></br>"It confirms that the economy has turned an important corner," says J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. chief economist Bruce Kasman. "It's been growing for a while, but I think what we're seeing is that this growth is now broadening out to include jobs."