Economic Recovery

WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to its lowest level in nearly 5½ years last week, signaling labor market resilience in the face of fiscal austerity. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 323,000, the ...

By Christopher S. Rugaber WASHINGTON -- U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in April, and hiring was much stronger in the previous two months than the government first estimated. The job increases helped reduce the unemployment rate from 7.6 percent to a four-year low of 7.5 percent. The report Friday from ...

WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, pointing to a continued steady improvement in labor market conditions. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 341,000, the Labor Department said ...

With mortgage rates hitting all-time lows, will jobs in construction finally start to boom? After three dismal years, Al Dio Dati thinks so. The owner of a Yonkers, N.Y.-based residential-construction firm for more than 50 years, he says that expectations are so good this year that he expects to double the ...

I'm starting a new, full-time job this week. I've waited 34 months to write that sentence. I received an offer on Tuesday and accepted it on Thursday. I can't even pinpoint exactly how I'm feeling right now, it's such a jumble. Happy, nervous, worried, anxious, sad, excited. ...

By Annalyn Censky Don't just call it a low-wage recovery. It's true that the economy has added a lot of low-paying jobs over the last two years. Restaurants and bars, which pay a median wage of just $9 an hour, have accounted for 15 percent of all the jobs created in the recovery. Retailers, which pay ...

By Roberta Rampton The U.S. oil and gas boom is cutting into jobless numbers, supporting a total of 1.7 million jobs this year, a number that will swell to almost 3 million by 2020, a leading consultant said in a study released on Tuesday. The report by forecaster IHS Global Insight is part of a ...

By Tami Luhby NEW YORK -- Women are finding their way back into the workforce. The economic upswing had until recently been a "hecovery," but the revival is now becoming more balanced between the genders. The number of women employees has jumped by 300,000 in the past six months, nearly the same ...

The 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. saw their rate of economic expansion slow down in the second quarter of 2012 from the first quarter, with cities in the Northeast hit hardest, according to a report on Tuesday. Cities across the country have been struggling to regain their financial footing ...