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Good News for Job Seekers In Geithner's Statement--Really.

Published: Mar 17, 2010

Tim Geithner's recent statement on the economy contained at least one kernel of good news for job seekers: he expects the labor market to add 100,000 jobs per month until the end of 2010. That's somewhere between 900,000 and 1 million new jobs between now and 2011. The bad news, of course, is that the number of eligible workers in the country is growing at a faster rate than that, meaning we may actually see a rise in the unemployment rate—already dubbed "unacceptable by any metric"—before the year is out.

While it's easy to look at the latter half of the previous paragraph and draw the conclusion that things are only going to get worse, at least there's confirmation in the first half of it that the job market isn't going to be stagnant. Sure, you'll still be facing stiffer competition than a couple of years ago, but at least there's something to compete for.

The even better news—depending how much faith you put in government predictions, I suppose—is that job growth is expected to double in 2011, and to rise to the point where the economy is adding 250,000 jobs per month in 2012 (that's 3 million positions a year). All of which, Geithner predicts, could bring the jobless rate down to 7.9 percent by the beginning of 2013. Again, not exactly the most encouraging figures in the world, but a sight better than where we are now—or have been for several months, for that matter.

The most important thing anyone searching for a job can do is keep discouragement at bay. Many of us have been in situations where every door seems closed, and where the situation you're going through seems like it'll never end. At such times, it's important to have something positive to focus on to enable you to keep going. The prospect of almost 5.5 million jobs opening up over the next couple of years is an obvious one—regardless of what the other stats might say.

--Posted by Phil Stott, Vault.com

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