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Job growth has slowed but is still occurring at faster pace than last year. Employers added an average of 212,000 jobs a month from January through March. That helped push down the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent from 9.1 percent last August. Some recent reports suggest that the housing market is slowly improving. January and February made up the best winter for sales of previously occupied homes in five years, when the housing crisis began. The 4.63 million annual sales pace in January was the highest since May 2010, the last month that buyers could qualify for a federal home-buying tax credit. Builders are laying plans to construct more homes in 2012 than at any other point in past 3 1/2 years. More jobs and a better outlook among buyers could also make 2012 the first year since 2008 that construction adds to the U.S. economy.
[Associated
Press;
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