>> until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established. >> tom: federal reserve chairman ben bernanke says he's hopeful we'll soon see more job creation. and he's not the only one. we talk with the top bosses of two job search web sites to find out who's hiring and where. you're watching "nightly business report" for thursday, february 3. this is "nightly business report" with susie gharib and tom hudson. "nightly business report" is made possible by:

this program is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by wpbt >> tom: good evening, everybody. susie gharib is off tonight. bernanke said that the central bank expects the economy to improve this year and inflation to remain low, despite the jump in commodity prices. >> as this report tonight shows, the fed chairman spent much of today's qan, session talking about the long list of challenges facing the economy.

>> reporter: in a rare appearance before journalists at the national press club, the federal reserve chairman defended his government bond- buying program known as quantitative easing. bernanke said the unorthodox policy is working to boost the economy, even though unemployment and inflation both remain too low for comfort. the fed chairman also pushed back against critics who say the central bank is partly responsible for record-setting food prices around the world. those critics say the fed's low interest rate, easy money policies are weakening the dollar, which exports inflation. but bernanke said fast growth in emerging markets is causing prices to rise, and if those countries don't like that, they can adjust their economic policies and exchange rates. he dismissed any suggestions the fed is at all responsible for the economic stress contributing to the unrest roiling the middle east. >> food in egypt is priced in egyptian pounds, not in dollars. if the dollar is weaker, the egyptian pound is stronger. so clearly, what is happening is not a dollar effect.

what's happening is a growth effect, primarily in the emerging markets, which is creating this tremendous demand for commodities. >> reporter: the fed chairman also gave one of his strongest warnings yet on the seemingly never-ending outlook for massive federal deficits. if the political system can't summon the will to act, he warned investors will lose confidence and charge the treasury more to borrow money. >> in a vicious circle, high and rising interest rates would cause debt-service payments on the federal debt to grow even faster, causing the g.d.p.-to- debt ratio to rise, making fiscal adjustment all the more difficult. >> reporter: any adjustment will also have to take place in an economy that has lost eight and a half million jobs. the fed chairman warned it will take years to claw our way back. >> until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established. >> reporter: fortunately, the fed chairman said he expects to see some stronger monthly employment reports pretty soon. darren gersh, "nightly business

report," washington. >> tom: job growth is key to so much of the economic recovery. despite the stubbornly high unemployment rate, the demand for some skills is growing. scot melland is c.e.o. at dice holdings, the company behind e-financialcareers,com. gautam godhwani is c.e.o. at simplyhired.com, an employment online search engine. both of them join us tonight, welcome to nightly business report. >> thank you, tom, it's good to be here. >> tom: we want to start with you, scot, how would you describe the hire environment right now? >> well, it's interesting. overall it's still a struggling environment, if you compare it to historical labor markets. but the good news is that it's improving. we've had private sector job growth for the last 13 out of the last 14 months. and especially if you are in the professional segments of the labor market, you tend to be doing a little bit better. >> tom: gautam would you agree with that assessment. >> i would. i think we are dro going

through a lot of struggles but from simplyhire.com perspective there are reasons to be optimistic. we have a snapshot of job advertisements across the web and have seen them right from 2.1 million job openings to now 4.8 million openings which is prerecession levels. >> tom: i want to look at a bar chart from that data shared. the job data finds that not only have job openings that you track on your job search database clearly have recovered but we're almost to the level we saw during the boom years in 2007. much competition for this increase in job openings you are seeing, gautam. >> i think the competition for these job openings is fierce dependinging where you are. so for example if you go into metros such as washington, d.c. or boston, are you going to see some really fierst competition but you go into some other met rose, it's not going to be as bad. overall, i think what we are seeing is that as the economy recovers you don't just have the unemployed looking for full-time jobs, you have the underemployed

and you also have new workers coming to the workforce. as things get better i think some of those discouraged workers will come back. there is stiff competition ahead. >> tom: that's where a lot of the experts point to, for reasons are of why the unemployment rate likely is going to be subornly high even as we begin to create new jobs, right? >> that is right. i think you know, if you look at the johns that were lost over the last few years, and the pace at which new jobs are being created, it's goinging to take awhile. the good news is we are headinging in the right direction but it will take awhile to get back to the same kind of environment we had a few years ago. >> tom: you concentrate on specific industries. i mentioned financial jobs but also technology jobs. you say that certain skill demands are there for technology. take a look at a list you shared with us. this includes everything from project managers, job and developers, network engineers, database administrators. what makes these jobs so much in demand and are companies finding a big supply of qualified job-seekers. >> well, what is iting about these jobs is these are what

we would call the core technology skill sets. so project managers and the like, you need these people to really make new systems work in your company to develop new software, to develop new ways of servinging your customers. so they are always in demand. right now, though, with the recovery in the market and the technology upgrade psychele that we're in right now, there's huge demand for these people especially in the tech centered metros of the united states. >> tom: i want to talk about geographically speaking. gautam does this correspond to listings you are seeing in technology as well? >> it absolutely does. i think there are sectors that perennially have had a lot of competition. certainly the health-care sector is a very good example of that. and in technology there are just pockets where there is occupations that have continued to be in stiff demand. >> tom: there is the demand side from the location side some of which you have mentioned already there is concern that the weak housing market will continue to hurt a pickup in hiring because people can't sell their homes and pick up and move. you have some the hot job

markets and you mentioned some earlier including the capital city in washington, d.c., silicon valley, seattle and austin, texas. do you expect an impact from housing on job pickups in these locations? >> well, in these locations, the demand for tech professional, in particular is so strong that i think we're goinging to continue to see a vibrant recruiting market. the number of available jobs or postings are up well over 30% in most of these metro areas. in some cases up 50% from where they were a year ago so it doesn't seem at least for these technical sectors that what is going on in housing is really having much of an impact. >> tom: real quick, do you expect the economy to add a quarter of a million or more jobs per month this year sometime? >> i would tell you that i think that in the early part of the year that is going to be difficult to see. i think we are still seeing some of this recovery but i think as we get later in the year it is certainly possible that we'll see that. >> tom: scott, how about it,

will we see that number this year? >> you know, i think towar toward-- toward as gautam said i think towards the end of the area it is possible. over the next few months it will be difficult to hit those levels. >> tom: guys, we appreciate the ideas. our guest is scott millland of dice holding and gautam godhwani of simplyhired.com. here are the stories in tonight's "n.b.r.newswheel." strong retail sales helped stocks head higher, despite worries about egypt. the dow rose 20 points, the nasdaq added four, and the s&p 500 was up three points. a split decision for trading volume-- it moved slightly higher on the big board, approaching a billion shares, while falling to just below two billion shares on the nasdaq. heavy winter storms didn't keep shoppers away last month. thomson reuters tracks 28 retailers, and says their january same-store sales were up far better than expected-- over 4%, on average.

the trustee overseeing the liquidation of bernie madoff's business claims j.p. morgan chase likely knew about the ponzi scheme for years, but did nothing about it. he's suing for over $6 billion, and says the bank collected billions in fees on madoff's accounts. the suit was filed in december but only unsealed today. chase had fought to keep it confidential. the bank denies the allegations. it says, "j.p. morgan did not know about or in any way become a party to the fraud orchestrated by bernard madoff" >> realistically, there is no other source to get this many people for that cost. >> tom: still ahead, why careerbuilder keeps spending millions of dollars to advertise during the super bowl, and what it gets in return. egypt's beleaguered president hosni mubarak says he's fed up and ready to step down, but he fears doing that would result in more chaos in his country. even as he spoke, the fight for egypt's future went on in the streets of cairo. violence between pro- and anti-

mubarak demonstrators continued for a second day. meantime, a top western think tank says egypt's unprecedented week-long clampdown on internet and cell phone networks will likely cost about $90 million. the organization for economic cooperation and development says the blocked services account for up to 4% of economic output. that could result in a loss of $18 million a day for the egyptian economy. but the paris-based think tank warned the long-term implications could be greater, if multi-national companies decide to take their business elsewhere. with more and more people connecting to the web over smart phones, laptops and ipads, the number of available internet addresses has run out. but don't panic-- there are plenty more to go around under a new naming system. it's called internet protocol version 6 or ipv-6 for short. it's being used to identify everything from cell phones to web sites to your home computer, and it can handle trillions and trillions of web addresses. while industry leaders gathered

in miami today to hand out the last batch of old i.p. addresses, they stressed why the switch to the new system is key for businesses. >> there aren't sufficient addresses to hook everything and everybody up to the internet. what is the business impact? if you don't make the transition, the next two billion or three billion customers will run ipv-6 only and they will not be able to do business with you. >> tom: the switch to the new protocols should help companies use and develop more internet ready technologies. meanwhile, experts say consumers shouldn't notice any changes when accessing the web.

some late-day buying interest helped lift the major stock indices today. let's get you updated in tonight's "market focus." earnings and egypt remained in focus, but the big news will be tomorrow's january jobs numbers. regardless of employment-- or maybe because of it-- retailers reported strong sales to start the year. let's roll out the past year of trading for the s&p retail exchange traded fund. it bounced 3% on strong volume. but it still remains below this resistance around $49.

gains were seen across different retailers. sears jumped almost 8% to a seven-month high. it did not release january sales, but trading volume jumped. higher end department store nordstrom predicted better than expected quarterly results. shares added 5%. and the gap rallied 4%. its quarterly results beat estimates and it raised its outlook. b.j. wholesale saw a huge volume and price pop, but not because of january sales. the company says it will listen to strategic options, including a possible sale. this 12% rally takes b.j.'s to its highest price in almost a decade holding back gains of the dow industrials was drug giant merck, with this almost 3% drop. shares are down 11% from its january high, when it announced a setback for an experimental heart drug, and is only about $2

above a 52-week low. while earnings were a nickel better than estimates after taking out one-time charges, its outlook was disappointing. last month, merck stopped a late stage experiment on a heart drug, leading to the disappointing guidance today. meantime, at food giant kellogg, profits came in as expected, even though revenue and profit margins were down. with corn and other commodity prices rising, kellogg said to expect price hikes this year. that may have helped today's trade, with shares rising more than 4%. volume was very heavy, quadrupling from its usual pace. shares haven't traded convincingly over $52 since the spring time. speaking of commodities, coffee continued its rally, tonight over $2.5o a pound. that's the highest since 1997. sugar prices, meantime, dropped hard from recent 30-year highs. coffee seller green mountain roasters boosted its profit prediction, helped out by a

recent acquisition. today's 15% rally takes the stock to a new high, up to a level of resistance it has hit three time in the past year. finally, some big losers today. patriot coal dropped 8% after its largest stock holder sold. semiconductor maker intersil shed 14% on disappointing quarterly results. and outdoor advertising company china media express lost a third of its value as it disputed some negative online comments. and that's tonight's "market focus."

>> there is no bigger event to get your brand message out. when you go to the super bowl, you've got to think about it over a multi-year commitment. otherwise, i wouldn't do it. >> tom: those guys have done it seven years straight. they run the job hunting web site carerbuilder.com. it is among the companies forking over millions of dollars for advertising time during sunday's super bowl. but the decision is about more than just spending a wad of cash quickly. it's part of a broader strategy that kicks off with a super bowl ad. richard castellini is the chief marketing officer at careerbuilder, and has been since it bought its first super bowl ad in 2005. >> we use this as the main focal point of our campaign for the year because, unlike other major brands, we're not out spending hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars.

>> reporter: "advertising age" finds the average cost of 30 seconds of advertising time during a super bowl has increased from $40,000 in 1967 to $3 million this year. that's an annual growth rate of 10%, well above the inflation rate. careerbuilber c.e.o. matt ferguson says they watch key areas of their business to gauge the success of the ad. >> we measure the impact, looking at job seekers and revenue from employers, and we see positive impacts on both those after each time we run the ads. >> reporter: on average, the site's job applications jump 25% in the month after a super bowl ad, and revenues pop 39% over its usual growth rate. admittedly, part of the aura of a super bowl ad is the free publicity surrounding it. as the game has grown in popularity, so have the ads. it used to be super bowl ads were tightly guarded secrets before the game, but no longer. so what can we expect from careerbuilder? >> instead of just being the focus of one event, we've

understood that it is as much of the pull-through of the next weeks, next months versus that 30 seconds, 90 seconds, 60 seconds, how many ever spots you buy on that day. >> tom: and some companies buy more than one. despite the price tag, the commercial breaks between the plays have gotten more crowded. kantar media finds commercial time has increased, over the past five years, by more than two minutes. year in and year out, the super bowl has driven results for the company. >> tom: of course, the cost of advertising during the super bowl is more than just ad time. sources tell us the price of getting a 30 second super-bowl quality commercial made runs in the high six digits. sunday's super bowl could be the last nfl game for some time. tomorrow, we look at what's at stake for stadiums carrying millions of dollars in mortgage debt, and their investors, if there's a lockout. also tomorrow-- an update on jobs. as we mentioned, the labor

department is out with january's employment report. and our "market monitor" guest is john dorfman of thunderstorm capital. some apple shareholders are turning up the heat on the company to publish a c.e.o. succession plan. a proposal for the company to do just that is on the agenda for its shareholders meeting later this month. the institutional shareholder services threw its support behind the proposal today. it comes just two weeks after apple c.e.o. steve jobs said he's taking a third medical leave of abscence. apple's board does not want its succession plan made public, because it fears losing talent. a big recall for a fairly small problem. ford is recalling more than 350,000 f-150 pickup trucks in north america, most of them in the u.s. there's a potential problem with the interior door handles. the recalled trucks are from the 2009 and 2010 model years. ford says the recall does not impact the pickups made this year. the f-150 is the nation's best selling vehicle.

verizon started taking preorders for its iphone 4-g today. it marks the first time apple's iconic smart phone is available in the u.s. by someone other than at&t. verizon is counting heavily on the iphone, predictingt will boost revenues by as much as 8%- - huge for a company its size. tonight's commentator thinks the

cultural impact of smart phones like the iphone is even larger. he's harry lin, c.e.o. of tech startup taaz.com. >> apple's iphone is not perfect. its phone quality is not top- notch, and its computing power is very limited. but of all the smart phones on the market, the iphone, most of all, has transcended being a mere gadget into something that's become a part of your life. a smart phone seamlessly combines a mobile phone, a camera, a camcorder, a datebook, a music and video player, and a computer into something you fit in your pocket, that's always on and always connected. as a result, smart phone users have broken the traditional boundaries that restrict the desktop, or tethered, experience. or, more whimsically, a great smart phone puts the virtual world into the real world. smart phone users believe information and people are available anytime, anywhere-- real-time traffic maps, instant messaging, restaurant reviews, video chat, your facebook wall-- anything that flows through the

internet is in your hand. techno-geeks have proclaimed the p.c. and even the laptop computer dead because, they say, we've entered the age of ubiquitous, or pervasive, computing. that's hyperbole today. but ask a smart phone owner, and she'll tell you that is the future. >> tom: and finally, while economists expect the unemployment rate to rise slightly when the january numbers are published tomorrow, one person who has found work is recent college grad kyle mcdaniel. in our continuing series, "you're hired," kyle tells us he's now working for uncle sam, sometimes even from home. >> my name is kyle mcdaniel. i'm a contract specialist for the gsa in the national capital region. i'm spending the first year getting my certifications, and learning everything i can about the federal contracting process. i graduated in may of this past year, 2010, from george mason

with a bachelor of science in public management. i knew the job market was going to be very tough, just from watching the news, and hearing some stories from some of my friends who were on the job hunt and were having a very difficult time just finding places to apply to. i was feeling pretty desperate, i'm not going to lie. it was getting to the point where i was pretty much applying to anything that would give me a paycheck. when you don't really realize how bad the job market is, you don't think about other options, such as the options i was considering, such as construction, retail, manual labor. on a whim, i went to a job fair. the difference between a job fair and a web site is people go to job fairs, employers go to job fairs specifically searching for people to hire. i picked up a lot of contacts, a lot of email addresses. i sent my resume to every one of them, and it was a hire, the only one i got called back on. i would say leave no stone unturned. look everywhere. go to job fairs, go to every internet service you can find. i would say visit your campus career center.

they're there as a resource to help you find a job, and they're a very good resource. look. don't stop looking. don't give up. just keep looking, because they're there. they're hard to find, but they're there. >> tom: that's "nightly business report" for thursday, february 3. i'm tom hudson. good night, everyone. we hope to see all of you again tomorrow night. "nightly business report" is made possible by: this program was made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by wpbt

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