By Ian McKendry

WASHINGTON (MNI) – U.S Treasury Chief Economist Alan Krueger said
September’s jobs report showed the economy is healing and that a
double-dip back into recession is unlikely despite a lingering high
unemployment rate.

“What I see in these number is that the economy is continuing to
heal,” Krueger said Friday at the Treasury Department in a monthly
briefing with reporters.

“I think it’s clear that the actions the administration and
Congress have taken have put the brakes on the steep slide the economy
was going through,” Krueger added.

Krueger, taking a glass half-full approach, said the headline
number of a decline of 95,000 workers was not as important as the 64,000
gain in private sector jobs in September.

“I don’t read this as an indication that the economy is weakening,”
Krueger said.

Krueger did caution, however, that the unemployment rate is likely
to remain high for a while.

“We are starting from a very deep whole and movements in the
unemployment rate will be very gradual” Krueger said.

Krueger said job growth lags behind economic growth in modern
recoveries, and that in the current recovery job expansion has come
earlier than normal.

“In the current recovery, job growth has started six months after
the date the NBER [National Bureau of Economic Research] said was the end
of the recession, so by that standard, job growth has come earlier.”

On the foreclosure crisis, Krueger said prices have stabilized and
“are not going to continue to slide.”

Krueger also said the administration can accelerate employment
gains.

The Treasury Department Friday released an update on the Obama
Administration’s HIRE Act Tax Credit which provides incentives for
employers to hire long-term unemployed.

The tax credit is set to expire at the end of the year which the
Treasury Department said should encourage businesses to accelerate
hiring in order to take advantage of its benefits.

“Targeted programs like the HIRE Act tax credit provide an
incentive for private-sector employers to hire new workers sooner than
they otherwise would,” Krueger said in a release earlier Friday.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

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