WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The top economist at the U.S. Treasury Department said Friday that the job growth shown in the March unemployment report suggests the labor market is stabilizing and federal policies targeting the jobs crisis are working.
Treasury Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Alan Krueger gave his reaction to the Labor Department's monthly jobs report in a Friday morning briefing with reporters. "The report confirms that our policies are helping to improve the jobs picture," he said, although he noted the report at the same time "makes us aware of how much damage the recession has caused."
U.S. employers created 162,000 jobs in the month of March, which is less than expected but also represents the largest gain in job growth in three years.
Still, economists have warned not to rush to interpret the results as a recovery to the labor market. Despite the March job gains, 48,000 of them were due to temporary hiring by the federal government for the 2010 decennial Census. Additionally, the national unemployment figure still stood at 9.7%, a rate that many economists don't think will drop much for the remainder of the year.
Krueger called the 9.7% unemployment rate "unacceptably high" and reiterated that the Obama administration's own forecast for unemployment still expects the figure to remain high for 2010.
"We can expect further bumps along the road to recovery," he said.
He added, however, that the gain in the employment figures from the Census was smaller than anticipated and that the latest jobs statistics also show positive signs of job growth in the private sector as well.
"The job growth that we've seen it the private sector is a healthy sign," he said.
Since the start of the recession the U.S. economy has lost 8.5 million jobs. Although the worst of the crisis is now over, employers have remained reluctant to hire new workers and have instead met rising demand by having existing employees work more.
The March jobs report isn't expected to change the Federal Reserve's view that short-term interest rates should remain at record-lows.
(Luca Di Leo and Jeff Bater contributed to this article.).
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones Newswires
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