Washington, DC:  Two years after the country entered the Great Recession, there are signs the national economy has slowly begun to recover. Thus far recovery has meant the return of economic growth, but not the return of jobs. And just as some communities have felt the downturn more than others, recovery has not and will not be shared equally across the nation's diverse metropolitan economies.  Click here to download the The Landscape of Recession: Unemployment and Safety Net Services Across Urban and Suburban America from the Brookings Institution.

 Within metropolitan areas, many communities continue to struggle with high unemployment and increasing economic and fiscal challenges, while at the same time poverty and the need for emergency and support services continue to rise. Even under the best case scenario of a sustained and robust recovery, cities and suburbs throughout the nation will be dealing with the social and economic aftermath of such a deep and lengthy recession for some time to come.

Washington, DC:  More than two years after the Great Recession began, the nation is in the midst of a slow and fragile - but jobless - economic recovery. Some economic indicators seem to suggest that robust economic growth will soon resume, while others point toward a "double-dip" recession and still others indicate little change in the economic situation.  Click here to see the March Metro Monitor from the Brookings Institution.

 Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a rapid 5.9 percent annual rate in the last quarter of 2009, the fastest economic growth rate since the third quarter of 2003. But that growth may simply be due to inventory replenishment and, if so, is unlikely to persist. Consumer spending rose in January, but house prices fell. The unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7 percent in February, but long-term unemployment (unemployment of six months or more) hit a record high. The nation lost 36,000 jobs in January, slightly more than it lost in December but many fewer than it lost in previous months. Even if recent modest job losses prefigure a return to new hiring, the kinds of large, sustained job gains that would be needed to bring the unemployment rate down seem unlikely in the near future.

Lancaster: Spring has brought, not only a wonderful close to a record-setting winter, but also renewed hope and a list of work experiences to the participants in the Lancaster County Winter Youth Work Program operated by the Lancaster Employment and Training Agency (LETA) . March closed out this year's winter program for over 100 young adults aged 18 - 24 years old. The participants gained valuable work experience and on-the-job training in employable fields like: childcare, construction, maintenance, and office administration.

For many of the participants, this experience has been invaluable to helping them become employable, by giving them new skills or setting them on a path to pursuing further education to obtain career goals. Here are a few testimonials from participants in the winter program.

• "The Winter Work Program helped make me a better person. They gave me all the tools I needed to have a successful work experience." ~ Taylor B.

Lancaster:  In cooperation with The Lancaster Chamber, the Economic Development Company of Lancaster County, the County of Lancaster, MANTEC, and the Lancaster County Association for Human Resource Management, the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board met with 80+ representatives of Lancaster County employers to provide some new data on the nature of the economic recovery in the region, to hear the advice of employers about how government can make it easier to hire workers, and to share information about several new programs which will provide wage subsidies for employers that hire or place prospective workers.

Scott Sheely, Executive Director of the WIB, noted that, in January, Lancaster experienced the first increase in the civilian labor force in 18 months.  He suggested that the Board would monitor progress to see if this is the beginning of a positive trend.

Lancaster (March 18, Capitol Wire Service):  At a time of high unemployment and a shift in the state's top industries, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett urged job-seekers here to be "adaptable" in their search.  Corbett visited a CareerLink center in Lancaster and talked with several unemployed residents before releasing his plan to increase jobs in the commonwealth. One part of that plan will be to help the state's educational institutions better prepare students of all ages for the jobs that are available.

Many of the residents Corbett spoke with were middle-aged and looking for new skills in what they described as a competitive, increasingly high-tech job market. "There's a whole different economy that we're in now in the 21st century, with the Internet alone, and you have older people who need to find those jobs, because the old manufacturing jobs, a lot of them have left," Corbett said. The state's CareerLink centers offer skills training, job-search assistance and related programs to residents who are looking for employment. Scott Sheely, executive director of the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board, said that county's center sees 1,500 new job-seekers each week.

Pennsylvania's unemployment rate in February was 8.9 percent, which was slightly up from the previous month but below the national rate of 9.7 percent. In Lancaster County, that rate currently is about 8 percent, according to local officials.  Staff at the career center estimated that about 10 percent of the state's unemployed population come in for assistance.