Bernanke says U.S. job market weak despite gains

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the U.S. job market remains weak despite three months of strong hiring, adding that the central bank’s existing policies will help boost growth. Further job gains will likely require more robust consumer and business demand, Bernanke said this morning during a speech at the National Association for Business Economics’ spring conference in Arlington, Va. His comments suggest the Fed is prepared to keep interest rates near zero for some time. “Despite the recent improvement, the job market remains far from normal,” Bernanke says. “The number of people working and total hours worked are still significantly below pre-crisis peaks.” Recent job gains have lifted hopes for the economy. Employers added an average of 245,000 jobs a month from December through February. The unemployment rate has fallen roughly a percentage point since summer, to 8.3%. Still, the economy grew at an annual pace of just 3% in the last quarter of 2011, and economists believe growth has slowed in the first quarter of this year to around 2% growth. Bernanke says employers may have been hiring rapidly in recent months because they cut too many jobs during the recession, and he speculates government revisions may later show stronger growth over the past year. But Bernanke also says he doesn’t expect the unemployment rate to keep falling at the current pace unless much stronger economic growth occurs. Check out the full story from The Associated Press here.