For months, economists and politicians have been grasping at fragile "green shoots" in the US economy: tentative signs that the recession could be ending. Yesterday's news that only 345,000 jobs were cut in May finally looked like something solid to hold on to.
"We've seen the worst, and we're starting to see what we normally see at the tail end of a recession," said Sheryl King, senior economist at Merrill Lynch. For the past six months, the average monthly drop in jobs was about 700,000; twice the number in May.
