NBER’s Hall says payrolls make it “pretty clear”™ recession over

The biggest increase in employment in three years makes it “pretty clear” the deepest US recession since the 1930s has ended, said the head of the group charged with making the call. Payrolls rose by 162,000 workers last month, the third gain in the past five months and the most since March 2007, figures from the Labor Department showed last week in Washington. “I personally put lots of emphasis on employment,” Robert Hall, who heads the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, said in an interview. “I would say ‘pretty clear’ is a good description” for whether the economic contraction has ended, he said.