????灰暗的就業前景中存在一絲亮點：過去幾年雇員人數已壓至如此之低，企業將不得不增聘人手(啊哈！)。

????你或許會持懷疑態度，這是可以理解的。在失業率接近9%的情況下，美國企業界已實現大量利潤——2010年四季度的年化利潤額達到創紀錄的1.68萬億美元。首次申請失業救濟人數繼2010年大部分時候下跌之后，正在再度攀升，而股市已接近高點。企業真的想增雇人手，改變這種狀況嗎？

????答案是他們可能別無選擇。招聘前景改善，很大程度上是因為一度推動盈利反彈的生產率改善趨勢放緩，而過去兩年活躍的股市亦式微。

????單位小時經濟產出過去12個月增長了1.3%，Capital Economics的保羅?艾許沃斯表示——增幅低于上一年的6.7%。

????雖然生產率增速放緩長期并非好事，但這意味著財富創造減少以及經濟增速放緩，在復蘇早期階段這對于勞動者是個不折不扣的好消息——說明近期雇員人手不足，不管上周五的就業報告說了什么。

????生產率放緩說明雇主們通過采用降薪、裁員等簡單方式實現生產率提升的空間已無——那些希望在下一周期實現增長的雇主們沒有什么選擇余地，只能增加人手。

????“我們懷疑這些公司在提高生產率方面已無他計可施”，艾許沃斯上周四在致客戶的一份報告中指出。

????在2007-2009年的下行期間，美國企業不僅裁員數百萬，而且還通過對留下來的員工施壓，迫使他們更賣力地工作，在加薪和福利方面做出讓步，最糟糕的是，不能再嘲弄老板的領帶。

????在復蘇早期階段，這種壓力得到緩解，因為企業開始不再那么注重業務精簡，而是更多地思考如何在下一輪銷售增長中攫取更大份額。這往往會逐步帶來一波雇傭潮。

????要說本輪經濟周期的這一階段好不容易才來，仍嫌言有不達。有1,350萬美國人失業，數百萬人的工作時間不足，雇傭市場并不缺求職者。

????而且，也沒有多少跡象顯示，在汽油價格高達4美元/加侖之時，有不滿足于現狀的雇員很快會要求更高的時薪或工資。以經濟產出價格衡量的單位勞動力成本仍低于衰退前水平，而且2008年以來工資增速未超過過2%。不管怎樣，第一步是要獲得一份工作。

????“生產率增速放緩在經濟復蘇的早期階段非常典型，這是招聘潮即將到來的一個跡象，有時可能會有波動，”PNC經濟學家羅伯特?戴表示。

????這倒不是說失業率很快會大降，好日子又來了。招聘意愿上升會受到勞動者歡迎，但這會擠壓企業利潤率——這種變化不會受到股市的歡迎。

????而且，如果真的有必要減少招聘，將不足以推動經濟再次回暖。美國最大的問題是家庭和政府資產負債表上債務累累，你可能已經注意到我們在這方面進展不大。

????但目前，為了有更多的工作崗位，讓美國的富人們少撈點錢是值得的。

????The bright spot in a drab employment picture is that workers have been stretched so thin during the past couple years that companies are going to have to (gasp!) hire more.

????You may be understandably suspicious. Corporate America has been raking in massive profits – they flooded in at a record $1.68 trillion annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2010 – with unemployment near 9%. Initial jobless claims are rising again after falling for much of 2010, yet the stock market is just short of record levels. Do companies really want to change this picture by hiring people and paying them and stuff?

????The answer is they may have no alternative. The hiring picture is improving largely because the productivity gains that drove the profit rebound and the rip-roaring stock market rally of the past two years are petering out.

????Hourly economic output rose at a 1.3% clip over the past 12 months, says Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics – down from 6.7% in the previous year.

????While falling productivity growth is bad over a long span, because it means less wealth creation and slower economic expansion, in the early stages of a recovery it is unabashedly good news for workers -- something that has been in short supply of late, whatever happens with Friday's jobs report.

????A productivity slowdown shows employers have harvested the low-hanging fruit of wage and employment cutbacks -- leaving those that aim to grow through the next cycle with little choice but to start staffing up.

????"We suspect that firms just ran out of potential productivity-enhancing measures," Ashworth writes in a note to clients Thursday.

????During the 2007-2009 downturn, companies not only shed jobs by the millions but also put the screws to workers who remained, forcing them to work harder, give ground on raises and benefits and, worst of all, stop mocking the boss' tie.

????In the early stages of a recovery, this pressure eases as companies start thinking less about staying in business than about competing for a bigger share of the next wave of sales growth. This typically leads over time to a wave of hiring.

????To say this last stage has been long in coming in this economic cycle is a major understatement. With 13.5 million Americans out of work and millions more working less than they'd like, there is no shortage of potential hirees.

????Nor is there much of a sign restive workers are on the verge of demanding better hours or higher wages, unhappy as they may be about $4 gasoline. Unit labor costs, measuring the price of economic output, remain below their pre-recession level, and wages haven't risen faster than 2% since 2008. The first step has to be to get a job, after all.

????"The fall in productivity growth is very typical in the early stages of a recovery, and gives us yet another sign we're in a hiring trend, as bumpy as it is at times," says PNC economist Robert Dye.

????This is not to say unemployment is about to plunge and that happy days are here again. While a shift toward hiring will be well received by workers, it will squeeze corporate profit margins – a development that won't be well received by the stock market.

????And if lower employment is surely necessary, it won't be sufficient to get the economy truly rolling along again. The biggest problem in the United States is the huge amount of debt weighing on household and government balance sheets, and you may have noticed we are not making a great deal of process on that front.

????But for now, a little less cream for the fat cats is a price well worth paying for some more jobs.