However, increased employment in manufacturing is expected as international demand eclipses capacity. Caterpillar is expected to increase its personnel thanks to expansion of manufacturing in Texas and North Carolina.
While private jobs are expected to rise in January, the numbers are expected to be lower than in December due to seasonal trends. Temporary workers in December will be laid off in January, if they weren’t already before the new year, which is leading some economists to wonder if the Labor Department’s data will accommodate for the swings in temporary worker numbers.
The optimism may be premature. The Federal Reserve is expecting high unemployment to persist, which was a primary motivation in keeping lending rate low for the next three years. The unprecedented and clear signal that short-term bond rates will stay near zero until late 2014 was the result of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s belief that “we still have a long way to go before the labor market can be said to be operating normally,” as he told the House Budget Committee in Washington yesterday.
