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Renita Jablonski: Companies are still shedding, jobs but economists say it can’t keep getting worse for much longer. There is that peek of optimism today even as we’re waiting for the Labor Department to release the unemployment rate for March. The jobless rate is expected to hit around 8.5 percent. One thing to remember looking forward — it does take a while for employers to create new jobs in a recovery. Marketplace’s John Dimsdale has more.

John Dimsdale: An economic turnaround doesn’t always create employment. The last two recessions ended in “jobless recoveries.”

John Challenger of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas says at first, recession-wary business owners are more likely to hire temporary workers.

John Challenger; So what happens is you get companies who can much more accurately, on a just-in-time basis really, hire the number of people for the amount of hours they need and really get often very targeted expertise to their issues.

And this time, as baby boomers begin to retire, economic demographer Richard Hokenson says employers won’t have to create as many jobs to keep unemployment low.

Richard Hokenson: In contrast to what one hears in the media about 401k’s becoming 201k’s, the reality is the retirement trends still remain quite strong, and that’s something we expect to continue.

In previous recessions, Hokenson says the economy had to generate 150,000 jobs a month to recover. But as more workers retire, he expects it’ll only take half that many new jobs to bring down unemployment.

In Washington, I’m John Dimsdale for Marketplace.