Jobs on the way?

The nation's March employment report comes out a week from tomorrow, and the betting among forecasters is that the job rolls will show an increase, perhaps a large one. One research firm is looking for a payroll gain of 225,000, compared with a loss of 36,000 in February. What gives? Well, part of the increase is temporary - the government has been hiring hundreds of thousands of Census takers who are being added to the rolls for a few months. But even absent those short-term additions, there is evidence that the private sector is finally beginning to hire. Don't get too excited - there's a massive backlog of job seekers, so it could be a while before the jobless rate shows a noticeable fall. Don't also forget that the state and local jobless rate is almost 3 percentage points higher than the national rate. Even so, a strong March report would be a big deal. Simon Constable offers this at Real Time Economics:

Anecdotally, I've seen evidence of a more vibrant job market. Here in New York City, there has been a dramatic decline in service quality at some of the local lunch spots. That is typically a sign that it's becoming harder for companies either to get quality workers and/or appropriately trained managers. In addition, not only are there now help-wanted signs in store fronts, but there is also some rather frenetic activity among headhunters. Both things were absent eight months ago.

California's employment numbers for February come out tomorrow.