NEW YORK — Instead of complaining about clean air rules, maybe utilities should cheer them.

Sometimes, the rules lead to big gains.

First Energy, a utility based in Ohio, got such a boost Thursday, a week after the company announced it would close six coal-fired plants, blaming new federal rules aimed at slowing emissions of mercury and other toxins.

Without these plants, electricity prices in parts of Ohio dominated by First Energy are expected to nearly double at a power auction scheduled for May.

The reason: There will now be a smaller fleet of power plants available to meet potential power needs. This smaller supply means the price to coax companies like First Energy to make their plants available will rise.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith, an analyst at UBS, predicted rates would rise from $ 126 for every megawatt available per day to $ 200. For the 8,000 megawatts of power plant capacity owned by First Energy in the region, that would be an extra $ 216 million for the year covered by the auction.

Jonathan Arnold, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said there’s a chance prices could approach $ 500, which would be an enormous windfall for First Energy.

First Energy shares rose 3.3 percent Thursday on a day in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell slightly.

Electric utilities have complained about a raft of new and tightening environmental standards. They argue that the rules are too stringent and that utilities are not being allowed enough time to prepare for them

The rules address several environmental issues: Emissions of toxins harmful to human health, pollutants that lead to smog and acid rain, the amount of water used to cool plants and disposal of power plant waste products.

Utilities argue that the cost of complying with the rules is too high, that electric power supplies could be constrained in certain regions and that electricity bills will rise.

What they don’t generally say, however, is that the rules can lead to higher earnings in some cases.

Electric utilities are regulated differently in every state, so the way utilities can benefit differs too. Here’s how:

_ In states where power prices are set by market forces, fewer plants means lower electricity supply, and higher prices. Companies that have plants that comply with the new rules stand to benefit from higher prices. First Energy has nuclear and modernized coal plants that meet the new standards.

_ In states that are regulated, utilities have to ask public utilities commissions for permission to install new equipment or build new plants. But the utilities are allowed to earn a higher return on these big-ticket investments than they are for selling power to customers. To the extent that the new environmental regulations allow regulated utilities to build new equipment, they will likely lead to higher earnings.

But some companies will suffer. For example, utilities in unregulated states that have to pay for upgrades themselves and cannot benefit from higher prices won’t be able to offset the cost of the equipment. Similarly, if state regulators refuse to allow utilities in their state to pass the cost of the upgrades or new plants to customers, those companies could suffer too.

The industry also argues that higher prices could also lead to lower power demand and profit.

First Energy chose to close plants that likely would have been unable to operate under the new rules on toxins. These plants are generally older and inefficient, so installing emissions control equipment would have cost the company too much money. These plants were already seldom used, so by closing them the company does not stand to lose much revenue from the small amount of power they generated.

But in the markets First Energy operates, plants earn money two ways: by selling power, and by making power plants available for use during peak periods, even if they are never actually needed.

With the closure of four plants in Ohio, there will be less power available to meet demand. That is expected to drive prices for capacity higher.

“First Energy’s nuclear plants and baseload coal plants with environmental controls are the primary beneficiaries of the EPA rules,” says Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

Power prices have been driven lower in recent years by low natural gas prices, which in many markets set the price of electricity. Because of this, prices for capacity have become more important to company earnings.

Customers in northern Ohio will pay higher prices than they otherwise would have in the coming years. The final prices they pay, however, will depend on several other factors, including the price of coal, the price of natural gas, and power demand.

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Workers in London, Ont., say they’ll continue to picket even though the Electro-Motive Diesel plant is now officially closed, as the head of the Canadian Auto Workers calls for a public inquiry into the closure.

Progress Rail Services Corp., a subsidiary of U.S. construction equipment conglomerate Caterpillar, announced the closure of the locomotive plant Friday.

The company locked out 450 workers from the facility on Jan. 1. Costs were the main factor in the dispute, with the company pushing certain employees to take a 50-per-cent pay cut, despite making nearly $ 5 billion last year.

Caterpillar said costs were too high.

CAW union boss Ken Lewenza admits cost has meant the loss of many manufacturing jobs in Canada.

“At the end of the day, if it’s all about competitiveness, then workers in Canada won’t win,” he said. “If it’s about productivity, if it’s about quality, then we will survive.”

Union workers plan to stay on the picket line until they get a closure agreement from the company.

Tony Biviano, one of the employees now out of work, said he’s confused.

“It’s not an economic thing; I don’t think that at all,” he said. “There’s lots of money here.”

It’s widely expected that Caterpillar is moving the jobs to its plant in Indiana; the company is holding a job fair there on Saturday.

On Wednesday, Indiana passed a right-to-work bill, after pressure from Caterpillar, that allows workers to opt out of union membership.

“I don’t think this timing is a coincidence,” London-based economist Mike Moffatt told CBC News. “Because Caterpillar got the legislation it wanted and the governor was then able to promote the jobs that legislation brought to Indiana.”

Latest blow to manufacturing sector

The plant’s closure is the latest blow to a Canadian manufacturing sector that is struggling under new competition from low-cost countries, a sluggish economic recovery and no currency advantage, due to a strong loonie.

Michael Burt, director for industrial economic trends at the Conference Board of Canada, said the manufacturing sector has been improving since the lows of the 2008-9 recession, but noted it faced difficulties long before then.

“Before the recession, we saw no growth in broad manufacturing activity for much of the last decade.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had used Electro-Motive as a backdrop in 2008 to promote big tax breaks for industrial capital investments.

NDP MP Robert Chisholm called on the federal government, which has said repeatedly that the Electro-Motive dispute is one between a private company and its workers, to do something.

“The fact is that taxpayers have funded Caterpillar, the growth of Caterpillar in this country,” Chisholm said.

“In fact, we’re funding the move of Caterpillar to the United States and, so I say, and I think Canadians would agree, that this government has a responsibility to hold that company accountable.”

Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for Harper, challenged Chisholm’s claim that taxpayers funded the Electro-Motive plant, adding that he wasn’t aware of any government dollars having gone to Caterpillar.

He said the prime minister was disappointed with the outcome of the labour dispute and sympathized with the workers who are now without jobs. But he blamed the provincial government for not being able to mediate a solution.

MacDougall said Ottawa is working on a plan that will generate new jobs and opportunities for those affected by the closure and will also work with Ontario to provide access to benefits and skills training for displaced workers.

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By Katharina Bart

ZURICH, Feb 3 (Reuters) – The first indictment of a Swiss private bank over hiding untaxed money for wealthy Americans has heightened tension among private bankers fearful of being next in the firing line.

The United States has indicted St.Gallen-based Wegelin, the oldest Swiss private bank, on charges it enabled Americans to evade taxes on at least $ 1.2 billion in offshore bank accounts.

The indictment, which was announced by the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday, set Wegelin rivals in Zurich and Geneva buzzing on Friday, highlighting the fear of another U.S. strike against a private bank.

“It seems the U.S. is shooting at everything in sight and we don’t know when it’s going to stop. I think the chances of another bank being indicted are pretty big,” a Geneva private banker said.

“After all, why should the U.S. stop? Switzerland is small, it’s an easy target, but a lot of money can be made out of it. When this whole thing started we didn’t know how far the U.S. would go, but now we’ve found out.”

Switzerland’s finance department, foreign ministry, regulator Finma, banking lobby and finance ambassador SIF were silent on the indictment of Wegelin.

Wegelin itself, founded in 1741 and run by loquacious and gregarious private banker Konrad Hummler, also didn’t comment.

The threat of imminent U.S. indictment, seen as the kiss of death for businesses, drove Wegelin to sell itself last week.

The indictment is the culmination of months of uncertainty for private bankers, many of whom won’t travel to the United States, even for personal reasons, for fear of being arrested.

Several Wegelin rivals chided Hummler for “bringing on the indictment himself” through repeated verbal swipes at U.S. officials as they began cracking down on offshore centers like Switzerland. Unusually outspoken among banking peers who typically prefer to blend in and live and work in relative obscurity, Hummler courted press attention, which he successfully translated into business for Wegelin.

However, he did not fear irking U.S. authorities repeatedly. Justice officials were annoyed by a “farewell, America” letter he wrote to Wegelin clients in 2009, in which Hummler urged clients to sell any U.S. securities they owned given heightened Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of tax dodgers, according to people briefed on the matter.

Hummler’s letter was taken by many rivals as a codified invitation for tax evaders to bring their funds to Wegelin as UBS and other banks were sweeping their accounts clean of tax offenders.


PAINFUL STEP

Hummler’s “fatal error” was thinking Wegelin was safe from a U.S. indictment because the bank didn’t run any U.S.-based branches, several rivals said on Friday.

Wegelin broke itself up last week in the face of the U.S. campaign, moving most of its employees, along with clients and assets of 21 billion Swiss francs, to Notenstein Privatbank, in turn bought by Swiss cooperative bank Raiffeisen for an undisclosed sum.

Last week, Hummler, who wasn’t available for comment on Friday, called the step an extremely painful one.

U.S. and Swiss officials continue to work towards a solution to sweep Swiss bank accounts clean of offenders and make good on past transgressions. Several banks including Credit Suisse , which has put aside money towards paying a fine to the U.S. over offshore accounts, and Julius Baer, have come under intense U.S. scrutiny. Those banks, which both report earnings next week, declined comment.

Swiss giant UBS, seen by many as the blueprint for subsequent negotiations for Swiss private banks after its 2009 data handover and fine, also didn’t comment. The U.S. seized more than $ 16 million from UBS’s Stamford, Connecticut branch, which served as Wegelin’s correspondent bank.

Early in 2009, UBS averted a criminal indictment by contravening Swiss banking secrecy and handing over around 250 sets of data to U.S. authorities on an emergency order by Finma, which was later taken to court over the move. Finma’s handling of the affair was eventually vindicated on appeal.

The timing of Wegelin’s indictment dovetails with the U.S. launch of an amnesty programme designed to induce taxpayers into coming clean on hidden assets, the IRS’s third such program during its recent offshore campgain.

“This is classic tax enforcement strategy – the iron fist and the velvet glove,” said Scott Michel, a tax lawyer and resident of law firm Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C.

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New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning gathered impressive stats to guide their teams to Sunday’s Super Bowl. But what about their financials?

Huffington Post Business compared three key assets — real estate, endorsements and salary — to determine a winner. (Hint: It’s the three-time Super Bowl champ with the supermodel wife. But as they might be saying in New York, who’s counting?)

Our super disclaimer: Reported figures do vary, and endorsement estimates do not include hidden incentives and player performance bonuses. Other real estate transactions may have occurred without being publicized. This isn’t science; it’s the Super Bowl.

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The annual tradition of opposing mayors making a Super Bowl bet is taking place once again. This year, Mayors Mike Bloomberg of New York City and Thomas Menino of Boston made it a little more interesting, as the gamblers say, by putting together prize packages for one lucky family in the opposing team’s respective hometown. If the Patriots win, four people get to live it up in New York City, and vice versa if the Giants are victorious.

The problem is that the prizes — how should we put this — suck. They suck as bad as the Super Bowl games used to in the 1980s. A Duck Tour ride? Four tickets to the Phantom of the Opera? As the old joke goes, what’s second prize? Eight tickets? These gifts are the kind that appeal only to the fanny-pack brigade and characters looking for that one last shot at love in whatever holiday rom-com Gary Marshall belches up this year.

Yes, there are appealing things in each package, but the whole thing feels like it was put together by the “Corporate Committee to Show You Things You Probably Already Know About.” The selections don’t capture the unique entrepreneurial places and experiences that make Boston and New York City great — or boost the small businesses that are the core of these cities’ character.

We’ve decided to rectify the situation by letting our imagination run wild and proposing our ideal revamp of the bets. And while we didn’t throw in anything as glamorous as a photo op with the mayor (what’s second prize? Two photos?), we think the winners of our theoretical Super Bowl bet — and local entrepreneurs — would have a whole lot more fun if Bloomberg and Menino took these suggestions to heart.

If the Giants win:

• Congratulations, Giants lovers! We’re putting our winners up in a suite at the Clarendon Square Inn, an 1860s home turned six-story bed and breakfast. Located in the South End, but not “Southie,” the Clarendon offers you a plush bed, a soaking tub for two, a marble fireplace, a tranquil back deck, and rooftop hot tub with city views.
• A tour of Harpoon Brewery where the company motto is “Love Beer. Love Life.” You’ll get to love both while sampling the beermaker’s great UFO Raspberry Hefeweizen and specialty 100 Barrel Series.
• You can walk the Freedom Trail on your own. To get a totally unique perspective on The Hub, we’re setting you up with a Venetian gondola ride on the Charles River, via Boston Gondola Tours. Take in a sunset on one of the authentic private gondolas and we’ll throw in roses, strawberries and an accordion accompaniment.
• After you make it back to land, drinks and appetizers will be feted at the Island Creek Oyster Bar. Owners Jeremy Sewall and Skip Bennett ensure fresh seafood, caught by local fisherman, lands right on your table.
• Dueling dinners are served at Sibling Rivalry, where chef brothers David and Bob Kinkead offer different takes on a common ingredient like the “Fowl” entrees: David’s Crispy Pressed Half Duck and Bob’s Spit-Roasted Half Chicken. Fraternal friction never tasted so good.
• Anyone can take in the world’s great works of art, but few asthetes take time out to ponder the crappy stuff. That’s why you’ll be perusing the walls at MOBA, the Museum of Bad Art. Aficionados can soak in terrible wonders like “Sunday on the Pot With George,” “Sad Baby,” and Da-Vinci-wouldn’t-approve “Mana Lisa.” Afterward, walk down the block to discuss what you’ve seen — or try and forget — over wine and crispy fried lobster legs at Isabella.
• Nothing says you’re a Patriot, the original kind, quite like a Tricorne hat. You can outfit the entire family at Salmagundi, a one-of-a-kind store that stocks some 7,000 lids. If your tastes run a little less Tea Party-ish, husband and wife owners Andria Rapagnola and Jessen Fitzpatrick will find something in their incredible collection to ensure you’re behatted in style.
• Boston and the Irish go together like fish and chips, but the less said about the “authentic” downtown spots the better. We’ll pick up your bar tab as you get your pint on at Plough & Stars, a 42-year-old Cambridge institution with live music, Irish breakfast, a fine selection of whiskey from the Cooley Distillery, and Craic-heads of all walks of life. This is the place to go where you want everyone to know your name.
• For reasons we can’t fathom, Bostonians are loyal to Dunkin’ Donuts. To satiate your pastry craving, we’ll fill your belly with delicacies from Joanne Chang’s Flour and even throw in a sticky buns class to impress the New York foodies back home.
• No better way to wrap up a sporting weekend than with a little exercise. And by little, we mean the beloved New England sport of candlepin bowling. For the uninitiated, the pins are cylindrical (like a candle, get it?) and the balls have a top weight of 2 lb. 7 oz. So bowl a few games on us at the erstwhile Sacco’s Bowl Haven, which opened in 1939 and still has the blue-collar vibe of its bowling heyday. However, today’s pinheads demand better grub, so Flatbread Company took over, overhauled the menu with its gourmet pizza, but smartly left the lanes alone. Pizza and candlepin? What better way to celebrate the fact that the Giants beat the Patriots yet again, and the even more astonishing fact that Eli has more Super Bowl rings than Peyton?

If the Patriots win:

• Congratulations, Pats fans! You’ve just won a stay at the Canal Park Inn, a cozy bed and breakfast in the heart of bustling downtown Manhattan. Located in Tribeca, Canal Park is surrounded by top-flight eateries, and just a stone’s throw from the sunsets-over-the-Statue-of-Liberty at the Hudson River Park. The inn is in a landmarked 1826 canal house where each room is named for a family that lived there in 1850. You’ll be bunking down in the Batby Suite, which includes a private deck, offering an oasis of calm in the sea of action.
• In New York, sweatpants don’t count as clothes you wear in public, so we’re going to outfit your entire family. Since 1938, Paul Stuart has been keeping the men of Gotham well-dressed in clothing only available in its stores. Women can get all trendy in the “Ultimate Closet” at Scoop NYC, and the little ones can do the same at Bundle. As for the teens … we wouldn’t even try. We’ll hand you a wad of cash so you can go shopping alone.
• In recent years, New York City has had an explosion in craft breweries and we’re going to take you on a tri-borough suds tasting extravaganza. You’ll make your way from brewery-to-brewery in a classic 1970s taxi piloted by the Checker Guy. First up, the Pale Ale at the Bronx Brewery, which just opened last August and is already available at some 30-plus watering holes. Next, you’ll hit the Harlem Brewing Company for a Sugar Hill Ale from Jazz Age-loving brewer Celeste Beatty. Final stop, Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Craft Ales, where owner Shane Welch recently introduced the “Spice of Life” series featuring a unique hop strain for every month of the year.
• A visit to New York wouldn’t be complete without a night at the theater, but leave the singing superheroes for the tourist hordes. You’ll be sitting front row for “Magic Bird,” the story of the great basketball rivals premiering in March at the Longacre Theater. Produced by Kirmser Ponturo Group, the same folks behind the recent hit “Lombardi,” “Magic Bird” finally gives Boston sports fans the chance to see the Great White Hope on the Great White Way.
• There is no better way to see the lights of the city than an evening stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge. The 1.1-mile walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan will build up an appetite, which we’ll take care of at the Bridge Cafe. It’s housed in a 1794 wood frame building that’s been a brothel, a speakeasy, a pirate bar, and the rough saloon where Ms. Gallus Mag, a 6-ft. Irish bouncer, would bite the ears off of rapscallions and pickle them for posterity. They aren’t on the menu, but the city’s best soft-shell crabs are.
• New Yorkers will fight to the death over who makes the best pizza, so why not sample the top contenders and decide for yourself? Your guide on this crusty crawl will be Famous Fat Dave, proprietor of the Five Borough Eating Tour.
• Everyone loves cartoons, but few make the connection between Batman and fine art. POW! At the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, you’ll learn why cartoons are to be respected and laugh out loud while doing so. You might even run into New York native son Stan Lee. Afterward, get to doodling on napkins over beers at nearby Fanelli’s Cafe, which goes back to the days when SoHo was actually filled with artists.
• No matter how much money flows through New York, it will always be a draw for the weird and eccentric. That’s why we’re offering a gift certificate to The Evolution Store. Pick up a little something for the mantle back home like a head puzzle, a pigeon skeleton, or the ever-popular freeze dried bat.
• Grandmaster Flash, Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z … New York City is the hip-hop capital of the world and what better way to experience the dope beats and fresh rhymes the city made famous than on a personally curated Hush Tour? Founded in 2000, by hip-hop guru Deborah Harris, the Hush Tours take you to the street corners, housing projects, stoops, ‘hoods and music clubs from which rap evolved. As a bonus, stories are often told by old-school stars of the game like DJ Red Alert, members of the Cold Crush Bros. and Kurtis Blow. You feelin’ it?
• Yankees games are overpriced and Mets games involve the Mets, so we’ll wrap up your sporting weekend with a trip to Coney Island to take in a Brooklyn Cyclones game. Even if you don’t love baseball, it’s hard not to be swept away looking out past the neon center field lights to the Atlantic Ocean. After the last out, head to Luna Park to ride the actual Cyclone, the 85-foot wooden roller coaster that reaches 60 mph, and then dig into the fried clams at Ruby’s, the oldest bar and grill on the Boardwalk. We highly recommend riding the Cyclone first.

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Facebook’s IPO filing this week confirmed what we already knew: Facebook makes the vast majority of its money by selling ads on its site.

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DENVER (AP) — The federal government’s new plan for oil shale development on public lands would keep activity off thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive areas, with new leases initially being issued strictly for research on how to commercially produce oil from oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

The George W. Bush administration had made almost 2 million acres available for potential oil shale development and 431,000 acres for tar sands development, but federal officials took a new look after conservation groups filed a lawsuit in 2009 alleging the government hadn’t fully reviewed possible environmental impacts.

A new draft environmental impact statement released Friday says the preferred plan now is to make 35,308 acres in Colorado, 252,181 acres in Utah, and 174,476 acres in Wyoming available for oil shale research. Also, 91,045 acres in eastern Utah would be available for activities related to tar sands.

Together, the total is around a half million acres. Areas with wilderness characteristics, core sage grouse habitat, areas of critical environmental concern, and the Adobe Town area in Wyoming are among those that would be off limits.

The public has until May 4 to comment on the proposal.

The Bureau of Land Management estimates the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming has 1.2 to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil resources, but not all may be recoverable.

Getting petroleum-like substances out of oil shale, which is first mined, is tougher than pumping oil out of traditional wells, and companies haven’t found an economic way to do it in the U.S.

Oil shale contains kerogen, which must be subjected to temperatures of more than 750 degrees before it can produce oil. Studies have indicated up to about 500 gallons of water may be needed to produce one barrel of oil from it, which could be an issue in the dry West, the Government Accountability Office has said.

Following recommendations from the GAO, the U.S. Geological Survey is analyzing baseline water conditions so it can better understand how commercial-scale oil shale development could affect groundwater and surface water systems.

The BLM in 2007 issued six leases of federal land in Colorado and Utah for research on how to make oil shale commercially viable. Three more applications are pending and wouldn’t be affected by the plan announced Friday.

President Barack Obama’s administration says its development proposal continues to encourage research.

“If oil shale is to be viable on a commercial scale, we must take a common-sense approach that encourages research and development first,” BLM Director Bob Abbey said in a written statement.

Tar sands contain bitumen, which can be refined into oil. Canada has a commercial tar sands industry, but its oil sands and processing requirements differ from those in Utah.

Energy companies had said they needed consistent regulations and pushed for the government to leave the Bush administration’s plan alone.

“Within a week of encouraging an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy, the administration continues to introduce actions that delay and restrict development,” American Petroleum Institute spokesman Reid Porter said in a written statement. “There has to be certainty, and the BLM draft plan is not conducive to an operating environment that encourages investment.”

Shell Oil Co., which already has some research and development leases, said it’s uncertain whether it could commit to any significant investments in such big projects “without regulatory certainty or a clear path forward.”

However, Bill Midcap of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union said research is still needed on how much water will be needed to turn oil shale into oil. “We already face a water shortage in the West that threatens farmers and ranchers,” he said.

Vernon Lovejoy, a former BLM state director in Wyoming, said he also wants to know the potential effects on hunting, fishing and recreation, which hold up economies in rural and mountain towns in the West.

“I do believe oil shale can be developed in many places, as long as we realize the potential impacts before we enter into leases,” Lovejoy said.

Earlier in the week, a House committee approved a bill from Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., that would require the Interior Department to offer far more land and leases for oil shale research and commercial production. It would allow lease fees and royalties to be reduced to encourage development.

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., applauded the BLM’s move, saying the demands that development would place on local communities and water still need to be fully understood. “While I have long felt there is potential for oil shale development, it is critical that a number of unanswered questions be resolved before commercial-scale leasing takes place,” he said in a written statement.

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Follow Catherine Tsai at http://www.twitter.com/ctsai_denver

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Online:

Proposal: http://ostseis.anl.gov/documents/peis2012/index.cfm

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In January, the U.S. added 243,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, and Glerisse Rodriguez, 26, got one of them — but she still has a long way to go until she bounces back financially from getting laid off.

Late last month, Rodriguez started working in bookkeeping at Jacques Torres Chocolates, a New York-based chocolatier. She’s thrilled about the new work, but she is starting out at about half of what she earned a year and a half ago, when she was laid off from her last bookkeeping position. She is also about $ 9,000 dollars in debt, from leftover student loans and from months when she was trying to support herself and her young son on credit cards and unemployment checks.

“It’s like I told my mom: ‘I can’t be that choosy or that picky right now. I’ve been out of work for a long time and people are going to try to cut my pay and I have to accept that,” Rodriguez said. “Still, I feel like I’m coming home.”

On Friday, the Labor Department report — which showed that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent from 8.5 — painted a resoundingly positive, expectation-beating picture of the job market. But for the economy as a whole — and for many Americans — there is still a steep road before a full recovery will be at hand.

And while many headlines — and the White House — are trumpeting the report as a sign that a robust recovery is truly taking hold, some economists are greeting it with a measure of skepticism.

For one thing, even at this rate of growth, economists estimate it would take some seven years and 10 million additional jobs to return to pre-recession levels of unemployment. And although 243,000 new jobs is an unquestionably positive development, and comes on the heels of two previous months of good numbers (both revised upwards in this report), there are still 5.5 million Americans who have been out of work for six months or more. There are also some three to five million additional people who are no longer counted as unemployed because, sometime during the course of the deep recession and the painfully slow recovery that followed, they gave up looking.

The pool of “missing” workers has not been this large since the government began recording this measure, economists estimate. If all of these workers resumed looking for jobs, the unemployment rate could sit above 10 percent.

“This report is encouraging, but it still underscores how far a distance we have to go and how many people are still long-term unemployed and disconnected from the workforce,” said Harvard economist Lawrence Katz. Plus, Katz said, at the beginning of last year, growth also appeared strong, only to drain away in the spring as oil prices rose, the Middle East erupted, and natural disasters shook Japan.

“Even if we were willing to say that the scars of the Great Recession mean a couple of million people drop out permanently, we still have many years to go before we get back to where we were,” he added.

Another concern with the robust picture painted is that the strong numbers sit at odds with other important measures of economic growth — consensus estimates for the employment picture hovered at about 100,000 fewer jobs than reported on Friday. Real household income and wealth remains stagnant, consumer spending is still weak, the housing market is still sluggish, and uncertainty about Europe prevails. On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke noted that “the pace of the recovery has been frustratingly slow,” as he assured that the Federal Reserve will continue an “accommodative stance on monetary policy.”

“The first impression one gets is that something doesn’t make sense here, not when the economy is still so weak,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at The Economic Outlook Group. “Something has to give, and I think we’re all hoping that these numbers are accurate and sustainable, but we’re just not sure.”

Job growth came in a broad range of industries: professional and business services added 70,000 jobs in January, while health care — a steady gainer for the post-recession years — added 31,000 jobs. Manufacturing added 50,000 jobs, in part because the big three auto makers have begun hiring again. In lower-paying sectors, leisure and hospitality added 44,000 jobs, wholesale trade added 14,000 jobs, construction added 21,000 jobs, and mining added 10,000 jobs.

Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose 4 cents in January to $ 23.29. Though inflation numbers for January have not been released yet, Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, said that real earnings adjusted for inflation likely stayed the same or fell. Stagnant wages are likely to hurt the economic recovery.

“Energy prices and food prices have increased again, and since people have to buy those things, they’re going to have to cut back on spending on everything else,” Vitner said.

The average workweek for private-sector employees was unchanged in January. Vitner said that this is a warning sign, since “typically employers would increase hours before they increase employment.” He noted that this weak demand for hours indicates that job growth is likely to slow in the coming months.

All of this means that although the headline number in Friday’s report is strong, those who do have jobs still do not have much bargaining power. With a labor market this weak — there are still more than four job seekers for every open job — it is hard to negotiate for raises; for those newly employed, this often means accepting a pay-cut, as Rodriguez did.

She scored her new job after going through training at the Bookkeeping Center in Manhattan, a nonprofit organization that provides low-cost training and assists in job placement.

She said she’s relieved after a year and a half of anxiously searching — a year when she and her young son gave up their apartment, moved in with her father, and learned how to squeeze all unnecessary items from their budget — but she acknowledged that she’s not out of the woods yet. She has no immediate plans to move out on her own, and is keeping her budget as bare bones as possible.

“It’s hard with that kind of pay, when you’re used to making so much more,” Rodriguez said. “But I’ve pretty much figured out a way to just manage my money with what is coming in.”

At her last job, she earned nearly $ 40,000 a year. Now, she’s earning about $ 480 a week — a little more than 20,000 a year — paid to her by the Bookkeeping Center until she is hired permanently.

Mathew Heggem, president of the Bookkeeping Center, said that he expects Rodriguez to get a wage increase soon, once Jacques Torres Chocolates gives her a permanent position. He added that he plans to advocate on her behalf in her negotiations over compensation. Her final wages, Heggem estimates, could exceed what she was earning previously.

Heggem also said that in recent months, he has seen a pickup in requests for bookkeepers, but that many employers are set on paying lower wages.

“People are really looking for more help in bookkeeping,” Heggem said, “unfortunately they’re also looking to pay a lot less for talent.”

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