"washington post" staff writer neil irwin joins us now.d morning. >> good morning, david. >> let me just set this up for you. latest article, give you credit, you write the financial crisis is over, that the danger of it melting down, it's all over. but the job prospect outlook for 2010, what is it? >> it's not great, but it does look like things are starting to turn around. we might see job growth even as early as this past month. we will find out on friday what december job growth or loss was. the forecast is somewhere around zero. we might see a positive number. most economists are forecasting we will see positive job growth some time in the spring. job growth alone isn't enough because the population is always growing, labor force is always growing, so for the unemployment rate to come down, what you need is strong job growth, 130,000 jobs a month, we're a long way from that it appears. >> when you look at the periods in the united states, the last 20 years, where there has been strong growth, for example the tech boom, advent of compu

for more, let's bring in neil irwin, financial reporter for "the washington post."d morning to you. >> good morning, alex. >> for anybody unemployed and looking at this and had the hope with the start of the new year we'll bring new good things is there anything good from these numbers? >> some of the fine print is good. t it looks like the nation added a few thousand jobs in november. that's first time in two years. there is some signs that things will get better in the future. temporary employment was up by 47,000 jobs. it looks like businesses aren't willing to hire permanent employees yet, but are willing to bring on temps. that's a good sign for the future. that said, there is no two ways about it, this is a bad report and it shows we're still in a deep hole in the job market. >> i was looking at thursday, neil, not calling you out here but you did write the employment report could be a breakthrough for the u.s. job market. a lot of analysts seemed positive waiting for this report's release. what happened and why were analysts expecting better results? >> you'r

for more on this, let's bring in neil irwin, financial reporter for "the washington post." another good morning, neil. >> good morning, alex. >> what do these numbers tell us about the overall economy? >> well, it tells us we're in a really long, slow slog out of this weak jobs environment. you know, the signs have been pointing up the last few weeks, the economy has seems to have expanded at a pretty rapid pace in the fourth quarter, but apparently, businesses aren't confident enough to add to their payrolls. they're seeing better sales, are feeling better about things, but not enough to take the plunge and hire people, which is unfortunate. >> what happened? because analysts and reporters alike expected that this wouldn't be so bad. no, i know i called you out earlier, but you're like everybody else who's thinking this. the fact is, what happened here? ten times the number of jobs lost? >> yeah. keep in mind what happened -- you know, we've been seeing the weekly number of people filing for unemployment benefits has been declining pretty steadily the last few weeks. so, ye