[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3026]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   ECONOMY AND JOB MARKET ON THE RISE

  (Ms. NORTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. NORTON. We've had to come to this floor, Mr. Speaker, to speak 
about the folks who drove this economy into the ground and just how bad 
it was, but there is good news to raise the spirits of the American 
people coming from the Labor Department and from analysts. We know that 
the economy has turned around, but until the job market turned around 
nobody wanted to hear it; now analysts tell us so has the job market.
  All expected unemployment numbers to ratchet up during February 
because of the bad weather, including crippling snowstorms. Instead, it 
stood steady--too high at over 9 percent, but it showed confidence in 
the economy that so many employers stopped laying off people and kept 
people on. The biggest losses were where you might have expected, in 
construction, because of all the bad weather and the snowstorms.
  The best sign that employers are feeling more confident is that they 
are getting their feet wet with many new temporary employees brought 
on, which is always the first sign that they are ready to bring on 
people full time and permanently, and the best sign may be the 2.7 
million job openings. Now we have a mismatch. Thank goodness for the 
stimulus that went to community colleges to help us cure that mismatch.

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