HispanicBusiness

For the second consecutive week, the U.S. economy has exhibited an indicator of positive performance. Two weeks ago, it was the surprising negative 1 percent in economic growth for the second quarter, which ended in June. This past week, it was the unemployment figure for July, which was also less than expected. At 247,000 jobs lost in July, unemployment went down to 9.4 percent, from 9.5 percent in June.

True, none of these figures indicates that the U.S. economy has turned around and that companies are hiring again, they just reveal that the economy is not falling as profoundly as it was. After all, job losses in January amounted to 741,000 and in June they were 443,000, double of what they were in July.

Therefore, it was a positive sign that this July job losses were the smallest since last August. The same can be said of the figure that the US economy contracted only 1 percent in the last quarter, ending in June. The economy is still contacting, but not as much as 6 and 5 percent of the previous two quarters.

Both the unemployment and the growth figures are positive, given the magnitude of what is now called the Great Recession, which started in December 2007. Since then, 6.7 million jobs have been lost and the economy as a whole has experienced a contraction of almost 4 percent, the steepest decline since the end of the Second World War.

Isaac Cohen is the former director of the Washington Office of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). He is a commentator on economic and financial issues for CNN en Espanol TV and radio.