“This could end up being the worst teen summer job market in employment records going back to 1948,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. “With data now suggesting that consumers are pulling back on spending, it is unlikely that a late hiring surge will salvage the dismal summer job situation for the nation’s youngest workers."

“We are looking at what could be a very long siege here,” Krugman said in an interview today in Princeton, New Jersey, with Carol Massar of Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” “We really are at a stage where we should have a kitchen-sink strategy. We should be throwing everything we can get at this.”

Harper says one reason for the job growth is a high number of entrepreneurs – an area where Nashville out-performs its peer cities

We are still living in the aftermath of the debt crisis and the cost of that bust has also been distributed unequally. For one thing, unemployment is hurting the bottom swath of the population more than the top. While U.S. unemployment is now 9.5%, the bottom 40% of the labor force suffers from a 17% unemployment rate. In the top 30% of the labor pool, that rate is just 4%, according to Harvard Magazine. Meanwhile, Wall Street -- which includes a solid share of the top 1% -- paid itself near record bonuses -- up 17% in 2009 to $20.3 billion -- and is on a hiring binge.

“We are seeing strong growth from our clients being serviced at our Albuquerque center,” said Diana Grandinetti, site director at Sitel. “We are pleased to be able to hire a significant number of new employees and in turn do our part to strengthen the economy in the greater Albuquerque area.”