Dr. Larry Summers, chief economic adviser to President Obama, expressed great optimism regarding jobs growth in an interview with ABC today. Summers was speaking against the backdrop of new employment figures last Friday which revealed that 162,000 jobs were created in March 2010.
Asked by ABC’s host, Jake Tapper why big businesses were retaining earnings and not spending on creating new jobs, Summers replied:
“We’re in a very different place than we were a year ago. A year ago, we were losing 600,000 jobs a month. Now the process of job creation has started. We expect that it will accelerate.” Summers said.
Asked whether he thought that there might be some dips in jobs growth in the months ahead, Summers opined:
“Jake, the numbers fluctuate from month to month, and no good business runs itself based on every weekly or monthly fluctuation. And the president’s focus is on building a stronger economy so we don’t have debacles like the last couple of years again.”
“You know, the — the good news is that, if you look at what’s happened in the first quarter of this year, it’s hardly satisfactory, but it is running somewhat ahead of what the administration was forecasting, because our forecasts were conservative. And I’d expect continued progress in job creation.”
“As you see progress in job creation, you tend to see unemployment go down. It’s not quite as simple as some people think, Jake, because as conditions get better, more people decide to look for work and are counted as in the labor force. So sometimes it’s frustrating and the progress doesn’t show up immediately in the unemployment rate, but it’s progress nonetheless in giving jobs to people who need them.”
