Just around the corner?

摘要

Puzzlement among economists, bordering on alarm, over the economy's seeming inability to create jobs-and rare manna for Democratic presidential hopefuls. In December the economy created barely 1,000 new jobs, though something nearer 150,000 had been expected: after all, the economy grew by more than 8% in last year's third quarter, and probably by over 4% in the final quarter. In all, over the past five months, America has generated only 278,000 jobs in non-farm businesses, a typical figure for a single month during the glorious boom. America, says Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley and a leading hand-wringer, is stuck in a "jobless recovery" unprecedented in scale, with no end in sight. "The 'animal spirits' of a broad-based hiring-led revival by us businesses are all but absent," he writes.