There’s a promising start to the new year already. On Friday, a report was released stating 200,000 jobs were added in December (2011) to America’s economy. We shall see if these numbers are a sign of the economic relief to come in 2012 or simply an oddity. 

The report released yesterday indicated that 200,000 jobs were added in the month of December and that the average unemployment rate for America fell to 8.5 percent. This is good news because we’re above the typical 125,000 jobs stated to accommodate the natural influx of people in the workforce in a given month. Also, we haven’t seen the unemployment rate at 8.5 percent since the first month Obama entered office in February 2009.

Although this is good news, it’s not enough to allow us to predict a trend for 2012 or the near future. The Obama stimulus is running out and there is talk of cutting more and more jobs. Also, seasonal work, which peaks during holiday months provide some misleading figures to our data. These jobs are temporary and many employees have already been let go.

And still, think tank Hamilton Project claims that if 208,000 jobs were created in each month of 2012 it would still take 12 years to see the end of this recession. Even if you increased that number to 321,000 jobs per month, the rate of new jobs seen in the booming 90s, it would still be another 5 years till this economy made a complete 180.

So although December’s numbers may be a glimmer of hope, we have yet to see how the economy weathers 2012.