Analysts Expect More Jobs Amid Higher Jobless Rate

Analysts are predicting that the ailing economy kept adding jobs in March even as the unemployment rate crept higher, another sign the U.S. may avoid recession this year. The Labor Department will issue its monthly jobless statistics Friday and experts expect the numbers to show the jobless rate rose to 4.3% in March from 4.2% in February. With consumer confidence and spending showing signs of life after slumping at the end of last year, economists are growing hopeful the Federal Reserve will engineer a “soft landing” for the economy by reducing interest rates and preserve the record expansion, now in its 11th year. “It doesn’t look like a recession in technical terms,” said former Federal Reserve Governor Wayne Angell, now chief economist at Bear Stearns & Co. in New York. Angell forecasts growth of 1% to 1.5% for the first quarter, measured at an annual rate, and growth at a 0.5% pace in the second quarter.