March 9 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy could add 300,000 jobs this month as businesses rebound from blizzards last month that prevented hiring in parts of the country, said Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Portfolios in Wheaton, Illinois. “We could easily see that,” Wesbury said today in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “I don’t expect to see consistent gains of that size, but clearly March could be that number.”
In February, the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent and payrolls fell a less-than-forecast 36,000, the Labor Department reported March 5. Snowstorms prevented an estimated 1 million people from getting to work during the week that the Labor Department survey of households.
Payrolls, which have fallen by an average of about 309,000 a month since the recession started in December 2007, haven’t increased by more than 300,000 in a single month since March 2006.
“We will continue to see increases in economic activity,” Wesbury said. “The economy is getting better because it has an underlying force of productivity, enterprise, technology.”
