Source: Market Watch March 18, 2010, 1:21 p.m. EDT
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell by 5,000 in the latest week, marking the third straight drop, but there's little evidence companies are ready to hire at a pace that would sharply reduce the nation's high jobless rate. Unemployment predicted to stay high for some time.
Yet senior economic officials at the White House repeated a warning this week that unemployment might remain near its current level of 9.7% for an "extended period." White House officials predict the economy will add an average of 100,000 jobs a month in 2010, but that would just keep pace with natural growth in the labor force. Jobs would have to be created at double that pace to sharply reduce unemployment.
To help millions of workers who can't find jobs, Washington is set to extend benefits until the end of the year. Regular unemployment benefits run out after 26 weeks.Lawmakers this week also passed another stimulus bill, worth $17.6 billion, aimed at creating more jobs. Included in the measure are temporary tax credits for businesses that hire additional workers.
In the week of Feb. 27, the number of workers receiving extended federal benefits climbed 352,000 to 6.04 million, not seasonally adjusted.Altogether, 11.65 million people were collecting some type of unemployment benefits in the week of Feb. 27, up from 11.36 million. The numbers are not seasonally adjusted.
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