Bloomberg (05/15/12) Peter Orszag

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, companies with 5,000 or more employees have been hiring U.S. workers at a fairly quick pace, expanding their work forces by an average of 0.4 percentage point a month from January 2011 to February 2012. The data indicate that the weakness in the nation’s labor market reflects slow hiring growth among most smaller companies, which during the same period expanded their work forces by just 0.1 percentage point a month. Meanwhile, companies with nine or fewer workers saw their net employment decline.