White House economic adviser Larry Summers believes winter blizzards are likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures, which are due to be released on Friday.
“The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics, and in past blizards those statistics have been distorted by 100 to 200 thousand jobs. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends. I think those underlying trends are going to show job growth soon,” Summers said in an interview with CNBC.
Summers also touched on the EU situation and particularly Greece, a situation that is very serious and needs to be fixed:
“With respect to Europe, I am obviously very concerned about what’s happening in Greece and Portugal, in Spain, in Italy, on the European continent,” Summers said.
“I think there have been increasing signs of recognition both in Greece and in the major countries of Europe that this is a situation that has to be managed; that combination of getting the Greek budget under better control and providing more support is necessary to stabilize this situation.”
