joining me is jerry webman, and chief investment officer and strategist for oppenheimer funds and stu lewis. the economy is still shedding jobs and 9.8% of the country is unemployed and what do you make of this data? >> well, first of all the human toll from the recession has been terribly high, but we have to look at the other side of all of this, and the companies have been preparing and are continuing to prepare for tough times. and that means that if there is any turn in growth and i think that we are on the cusp of better growth here if nothing else because of the inventory rebuilding that the companies are having to do and i think that we will get profit surprises and the profits are the root of business expansion plans and profits are the root of businesses hiring, and i think that the job weakness as painful as it is, is going to turn into job improvement by early next year. >> early next year. jerry, what about you? what did you think of the numbers and when do you think we will see growth from your standpoint? >> one thing we can say with extreme certainty about any number i

joining me now jerry webman, chief economist with oppenheimer funds and stew schweitzer with jp morgan private bank. good to have you on the program. welcome. >> good to be here. sdoo stew, we got the jobs report. we know it was worse than expected. the economy is still shedding jobs. 9.8% of the country unemployed. what is your reaction? what do you make of this data? >> the human toll from this recession has just been so terribly high. i think we've got to look at the other side of all of this. companies have been preparing and are continuing to prepare for tough times, and that means that if there's any turn in growth, and i think we are on the cusp of better growth here, if nothing else because of the inventory rebuilding that companies are having to do, then i think we'll get positive profit surprises. profits are the root of business expansion plans. profits are the root of business hiring. i do think that this job weakness, as painful as it is, is going to turn into job improvements by early next year. >> early next year. jerry, what about you? what did you think of the numbers,