>> we have strong evidence here that one of the key missing pieces of the recovery is falling into place. >> susie: we're talking jobs. the february numbers are in and they show another month of solid gains. >> i'm darren gersh with treasury secretary timothy geithner. we'll hear from him on tax reform and ways to keep jobs in the united states. >> tom: and are you looking forward to the weekend? lou heckler's been thinking about anticipation at work. it's "nightly business report" for friday, march 9. this is "nightly business report" with susie gharib and tom hudson. "nightly business report" is made possible by:

captioning sponsored by wpbt >> susie: good evening, everyone. u.s. companies are hiring again. that's according to the government's latest snapshot of the job market. tom, the february market was even better than expected. susie, it also turned out there were more jobs added in december and january that first reported. it all adds up to even more jobs for the economy. let's take a look the numbers: the nation's unemployment rate held steady in february at 8.3%. employers added 227,000 news jobs to payrolls last month and additional 61,000 in december and january. >> susie: those strong numbers pushed up stocks a bit here on

wall street: the dow rose 14. the nasdaq added 18 and the s&p was up five points and that was even though greece was officially declared in default. we'll have more on that later. but first, suzanne pratt takes a closer look at the labor news that's lifting spirits from wall street to main street. >> reporter: 227,000 new jobs. that's a nice boost in hiring for an economy still riddled with question marks. it's also the third straight month of job growth over 200,000, a good sign for the fragile recovery. economist john ryding calls it extremely encouraging. >> we're hitting at an employment pace now of 250,000 jobs a month. that's a million jobs every four months, that's three million jobs a year, if sustained. and, that's certainly a major step forward compared to the

recovery pace we've seen over the last two years. >> reporter: in february, the strongest hiring came in professional and business services with 82,000 jobs. still, more than half of those were at temp agencies. healthcare added 61,000 new jobs, restaurants and bars hired 41,000 workers and the manufacturing sector added 31,000 new employees. naysayers don't believe the current pace of job growth is sustainable. they point to nasty prices at the pump and how they're expected to hurt economic growth. but, some experts predict the damage will be modest. >> i think the question is whether hiring will slow in response to that weakening growth number. we think it will slow a little bit. but, we're hopeful that we're going to continue to hold somewhere close to 200,000 in payroll gains as we make our way thought the rest of this year. >> reporter: and here's an interesting twist on all those new jobs we're seeing. it's encouraging people who stopped looking for work to go out and pound the pavement again.

but, that new supply of job seekers is expected to restrain the unemployment rate. >> i think 200,000 payrolls gains which should normally bring the unemployment rate down at a pretty healthy pace will leave the unemployment rate no lower than 8% if we're right. >> reporter: and, if you're wondering when we'll see the unemployment rate fall to let's say 6%, experts say that's a long way off. we're talking at least a few years if not more. suzanne pratt, "nightly business report," new york. >> susie: our next guest says she is encouraged and hopeful by today's job news. she's diane swonk, chief economist at mesirow financial. >> i do think there was hope in this report that has been really missing from other reports, and that was there was an increase in the number of people throwing their hat in the ring, looking for a job. we also saw some people that were more willing to quit a job. you don't quit a job unless you're going to get a job in this economy. again, some signs of hope. >> susie: is this job growth a

trend? can this employment growth be sustained? >> not at this pace but what i think we will see is more of a moderation. there are special factors that helped. we had unseasonable weather since october so that helped us out. the good news is, it's there. the good news is there's something turning and it's better than it was. we have to remember, our threshold, though, was pretty low. >> susie: you know, i was talking to the head of a very big executive recruiting firm and he was saying c.e.o.s just aren't hiring, they're getting by with less to do more. is there anything that we can do to encourage companies to hire more? >> the fed is trying to make it so repulsive to hold cash, that we make better investments which includes more labor force and more investments in our long-term future, invest future. that's what the fed is trying to get us to do. we saw today the trade data was not as good and it's because the rest of the world is show, particularly emerging markets

and the periphery of europe. these are the things that c.e.o.s worry about. >> susie: we do continue to see encouraging numbers on the economy. is the economy really getting better? >> it is really getting better. it's just getting better from sump-- we had such a big, deep hole to crawl out of and we're still crawling out of that hole and we're not going to see the kind of getting better that lifts all tides until housing market comes back. >> susie: how do you describe the state of the economy right now? >> encouraging. i'm not overly optimistic, but i'm encouraged because it's been a long, hard, slog. i think the recovery is becoming more sustainable. there are still a lot of headwinds and potholes in the road ahead but we look better able to go through those potholes and brace ourselves through them than we were just a year ago. that said, we have had a lot of false starts, and we can't underestimate the headwind we still face. >> susie: let's talk about some of the issues facing the economy. oil prices went up today. do you think higher gasoline and oil prices could stall the

economy? >> absolutely. that's the greatest single threat going forward. we had it buffered because it was unseasonably warmed. that buffer plays out as we move to string and we're hit with higher energy prices at the pump and that can crimp consumer spending and the political uncertainty abroad. it's not unsubstantial. >> susie: as you know, ben bernanke said last week the job market is far from normal. what kind of moves do you expect from the fed next week? >> i think it's going to be a steady as it goes. right now, the labor market is improving a bit, so they can take from that. it's not enough but it's not enough to trigger them to move or do anything. frankly, they've done enough recently. i don't think they want it make any noise right now. >> susie: all right, diane, thank you so much for your time. great talk talking to >> tom: still ahead, meet one of the newly hired. heather tells us how she found a career in social media. it's tonight's "you're hired."

when it comes to jobs, the treasury secretary says infrastructure investment and promoting u.s. products overseas are key to adding more workers to american payrolls. that's what timothy geithner told n.b.r.'s darren gersh in an exclusive interview in fort worth, texas, yesterday. gersh also asked the secretary about why the obama administration is focused on coporate tax reform when several income tax provisions, like the payroll tax cut are due to expire at the end of the year. >> both are exceptionally important, and tax reform is going to have to come because the tax system we have today is really unfair, and it makes us less strong as a country, and you need to work on both. the president, of course, has laid out a whole range of proposals on the individual side to help make sure to protect middle class americans, and we ask the most port nat 2% of americans to bear a somewhat larger burden of what the country needs. on the corporate side, what we think we need to do is clean up all the loopholees, lower the

rates so we can be more competitive. and make it easier for small businesses to work. >> a lot of customers ship parts and the companies that aassemble them overseas. your corporate reform would require them to pay a minimum foreign tax. the companies are saying that will make them less competitive overseas. >> what we want to do is lower the overall rate by cleaning up and reducing this huge amount of loopholes across the system and that will make the system more fair for companies and it will make the investments strong for this country. as part of that, we have to be careful we're not creating new opportunities for people to ship jobs jobs and investment outside of the united states. we think an important principle for reform should be all companies pay a minimum tax on their worldwide income so you don't see, again, more powerful incentives for companies to shift jobs out of the united

states. that's very important >> argument comes back from companies. they say, look, we're more competitive overseas. we'll be more competitive at home, invest more at home. >> of course we have heard all the concerns and these things are we're going to work through, but even the chairman of the ways and means committee, in his broad outlines for corporate tax reform that the congress should consider as an option a minimum job like that,. again, we don't want a tax code that creates incentives to move that offshore. >> on the deficit issue, back in washington, the policy one ofs all say the key issue is to get medicare spending and social security spending under control if we want to get our deficit and debt underontrol. but when i go around the country or to places like fort worth and you ask people, they say that medicare and social security aren't the problem. so how do you deal with our deficit when you have that disconnect between what policy experts are saying and what

people are actually saying about this problem? >> you're right, the biggest drivers for long-term deficits are the fact that more americans are retiring and the price of health care is rising as we discover new technologies for helping extend life. those are the biggest drivers of the long-term growth in government costs. they vastly dominate the rest of what people think of this government in that context. if we're eventually going to address those long-term deficites, then you have to get both sides to come together and think about ways to make those commitments to retirement, and make those sustainable and affordable over time. those are probably going to have to be accompanied by a broader set of tax reforms you and i were just discussing. i think the core thing for people to understand is we can't go on forever addressing this long-term deficit. we have to do it so we make sure we're promoting future growth, and invest in things we need like infrastructure, ed, and i

innovation. and it's also very important for people to realize there's no realistic way of restoring gravity to those long-term deficits without tax reform that helps generate a bit more revenue for the economy as a whole, not realistic to do, not possible to do, and not credible for people to offer americans a path to that without tax reform that helps raise revenues. >> treasury secretary guy, thank you for your time. >> good to talk to you.

>> boy, what a week. we started off with the dow having the biggest loss of the year and then ended up on the upside with good news on the job market and who knows what next week will be like. >> if we hadn't lived through it we wouldn't have remembered it, susie. it's been that kind of week here. let's update you to the quiet end to this week with tonight's market focus. despite plenty of volatility, the week came to a quiet end. stocks began this week in the red, especially the stiff sell- off tuesday. but buyers fought back and the dow industrials ended the week down only 0.4% the nasdaq was able to erase all of the losses from monday and tuesday to finish the week higher by 0.4%. and the s&p 500 was able the climb higher compared to last friday night, barely, but still higher by 0.1%. today's action for the s&p 500 shows morning buyers holding steady until the last hour of

trading, when the day's gains were cut in half, but it was a very tight range of only about ten points. a trade group made the official designation today a, quote, "credit event," has happened in greece. in other words, a default. the international swaps and derivatives association is the arbiter of complex financial derivatives and it's declaration will likely trigger big payouts. the move impacts credit default swaps, essentially insurance on bonds. the trade group declared a credit event after greece forced all bondholders to take losses, if they wanted to or not. so now, owners of those less valuable bonds could collect more than $3 billion if they owned credit default swaps. the move wasn't a surprise. just consider the financial sector, which has been so much in focus with the european worries was the best performing stock sector today.

starbucks shares jumped to a new high up 3%. the buying came after it released plans to sell a single- serve brewer. that single serve market comes with bigger margins. and the big player in that market fell hard. green mountain coffee roasters dropped 16% with shares settling at their lowest price since early february. the stock rallied back them after a very strong quarter, thanks to its single serve coffee business-- a business that now has a new competitor: starbucks. the company behind women's clothing store ann taylor is one of those retailers suffering from the strategy of steep discounting. offering big promotions to get shoppers in the door hurt its fourth quarter results, but there are higher hopes for this quarter. that led to some stock buying. shares jumped 6% to their highest close since october. the company expressed more confidence in the types of clothing its selling and promised better customer service. it was a mix of news at some specialty retailers. teen retailers zumiez and aeropostale were up 6% and 3% respectively.

both had better than expected earnings. but outdoor clothing store quik- silver fell seven and a half percent after coming up shy of expectations. the stock market wasn't the only thing able to rebound from its losses earlier this week. after sinking below $1,700 an ounce earlier this week, gold is back above that price. gold rallied almost $13 an ounce today. and that's tonight's "market focus." >> tom: even though the market has shot higher this year, it's off to its best start in almost 20 years, tonight's market monitor guest says there's still opportunity to take risk and be rewarded. jack ablin in chief investment officer at b.m.o. harris private bank.

jack, always great to see you. where do you see taking good risks, even after this rally? >> sure. probably the best opportunities still, tom, are in the u.s. large cam, s & p 500 type stocks, and also emerging markets. both trading i would say a valuation discount to most equity markets and the rest of the world. >> tom: lots of concerns have been raised about bonds. is that a risk to avoid in this market? >> yeah, unfortunately, with bonds held down by the federal reserve and other, i will say artificial factors, we're not very comfortable owning bonds beyond five years. so anyone in retirement, certainly go ahead and buy laddered individual bonds, maybe out to five years. but once get between five years and 10 years, the opportunity to start owning equityes, we would look for more of a hybrid solution like yielding, you know, preferred stocks or some

other kind of what we'll call hybrid securities. >> tom: sure, dividend stocks have been a pleat great place to be over the last six months or so. a couple of your new picks are directedda energy, beginning with chesapeake energy. you've seen the damage it's done to its share price. >> remarkably for as cheap as natural gas here is in the u.s. and canada, natural gas prices in europe are substantially higher. they're, like, three times higher than they are here. and in japan, almost four times higher. so at some point either we're going to start to move of more of a world normal energy price, or we'll start moving this gas through these other continents and pick up the slack that way. longer term, i think chesapeake's position with natural gas will rise over time. >> tom: another one independent nat gas field is exxonmobil, x.o.m., the giant that it is, with still a decent

yield at 2%, even though it's had a heck of a rally over the past six months. >> it really has, tom. it is well positioned and natural gas is also, obviously, well positioned for crude. here a case while a lot of people are pointing to tensions in iran and the middle east as the reason why crude prices are as high as they are, i argue another reason and probably almost a more important reason is just the expansion of the monetary base, the amount of money the fed has printed is now pushing commodities in general and crude in particular higher. so if you look at crude pricees, for example, denominated in gold, we're at longtime median levels, suggesting to me that a lot of this move we've seen in crude has to do with monetary expansion. it also means that the tension in addition the middle east subside, it may be-- maybe we're not going to see crude oil roll back that much. i'm just trying to use to

triangulate. >> tom: last time we saw you was right before labor day in september. you liked the health care sector. you also liked the power share equity fund up 15%. put anything new money to work? >> i would look for the high-quality stocks like v.i.g. would be a good place to be. the health care, i'd stay with that as well. >> tom: fair enough. do you own anything we mentioned? >> absolutely gloment of. >> tom: soot oured from market monitor eating his own cook jack ablin with b.m.o. harris private bank. >> susie: as we reported, almost 13 million americans are still out of work, but as we continue our look at people finding jobs. we talk with heather carper. in tonight's "you're hired": she tells us how retraining provided by a city run program took her from administrative assistant to social media specialist. >> my name is heather carper and i'm a communications associate

at akrete communications p.r. my specialty is in social media. social media strategy teaching businesses how we can take things that we think of as typically with personal communications facebook, twitter that sort of thing and leverage it in the business world. i became unemployed as of august 2010. i'd been an executive administrative assistant for about ten years. i knew that when i got laid off the last time, i knew i really didn't just want to go get another job, but what i really wanted to do was find a career where i could have more determination of what my future would be i've been working for akrete communications for the last two months now. well, i'm not the girl who just brings the coffee and water to the table i actually have a place at the table now. and contribute to the dialogue and that's incredibly exciting. >> tom: here's what we've got for you next week. we'll get a check on how you've been shopping and the prices paid with february's retail sales and consumer price index.

we'll find out what's next for interest rates on tuesday, when the men and women of the federal reserve meet in washington. and monday, serving 70,000 customers in four hours. how one n.f.l. stadium and i.b.m. are using technology for better business. >> susie: and finally, it's our friday feature "lou's been thinking" with author and educator lou heckler. tonight, lou's been thinking about engaging employees. >> i've been thinking about the joy of anticipation. years ago, i hosted a morning tv talk show in north carolina. i asked a pediatrician on the show, what's one thing most of us as parents forget when it comes to raising children? he only hesitated slightly: kids love to anticipate, he said. we should give them something to anticipate every day, maybe a bunch of somethings. that applies to us big kids as well. if you manage a group of people, are you giving them the gift of anticipation? i hear a lot about the problem getting employees engaged with their work. i wonder if we have so systematized things in the hopes of preventing errors that we have taken away some of the

creative fun. what would happen if we explained a goal we were hoping to reach and a date by which we wanted it completed and then gave them leeway in deciding how to get there? big time athletic coaches often have incentives in their contracts for certain achievements building their anticipation of what might occur if these goals are reached. couldn't we build in incentives for our workers, too? i heard a famous novelist say once that the best fiction makes us constantly ask, hmmm, what's going to happen next? it seems to me that would be a really exciting question in the non-fiction world of business as well. i'm lou heckler. >> susie: that's "nightly business report" for friday, march 9. we want to remind you this is the time of year your public television station seeks your support. >> tom: support that makes programs like "nightly business report" possible. >> susie: thanks for joining us and don't forget to support your public television station. i'm susie gharib. have a great weekend everyone. you, too, tom >> tom: goodnight, susie. i'm tom hudson. we'll see all of you again next

week. "nightly business report" is made possible by: captioning sponsored by wpbt captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org