U. Mich. economists: US job recovery halfway there

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — University of Michigan economists say that over the next two years, the U.S. economy will regain the rest of the nearly 9 million jobs lost in the recession.

The prediction came in Thursday's release of the annual forecast of the U.S. economy from U-M economists Joan Crary, Daniil Manaenkov and Matthew Hall.

They foresee the creation of 2 million jobs in 2013 and another 2.3 million in 2014 as unemployment falls from 7.9 percent to 7.2 percent during that time.

Employment fell by 8.8 million jobs during the 2008-09 economic downturn, but the economy has recovered 4.5 million jobs in the last three years.

The U-M forecast is based on the Michigan Quarterly Econometric Model of the U.S. Economy and compiled by the U-M Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics.