NEW YORK, June 17 - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Tuesday that job opportunities should brighten later this year as an expected pick-up in growth kicks in. "I think all the markers are there for a strengthening labor market as growth accelerates this year," Snow said in prepared remarks for delivery to an economic conference organized by Money magazine. Giving generous credit to the Bush administration's $350-billion tax-cut program that was recently signed into law, Snow said it already was showing up in stock-market gains as reduced taxation of capital gains and dividends was factored into investors' decisions. "Conditions for this recovery are looking better and better," Snow said. "But I think the real pickup is going to happen in the second half of this year," he said, "In fact, I think we're going to see annualized growth rates near 3.5 percent by the later part of this year."
In the first three months of 2003, gross domestic product expanded at an anemic 1.9 percent annual rate. Snow said recovery prospects were brightening, using the analogy of improving weather in the storm-racked Northeast. "This recovery has been soggy, but it's definitely drying up," the U.S. Treasury chief said. But he said other industrial countries, not simply the United States, needed to do their part to give the global economy a badly needed lift. "Today, the industrialized nations of the world are growing far too slowly and everyone suffers as a consequence," Snow said. "We expect others to take bold actions themselves -- including fundamental structural reforms where necessary -- to spur growth, create jobs and contribute to global prosperity."//