Today, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Benanke told a group at the Brookings Institution that the recession is probably over. Of course, he did qualify this statement with the fact that he expects the economy to “feel…very weak” for quite some time to come. One of the major reasons behind this weakness, reports MarketWatch, is the job market:

Bernanke said there is a risk that labor markets will remain weak through 2010 because growth will be too anemic to create jobs. Bernanke noted that many economists now expect the labor market to recover slowly.

The housing market is already starting a measure of recovery, thanks to government programs and thanks to low interest rates. However, recovery in other important segments of the economy are likely to be limited until the labor market manages to pick up. Jobs form a very important part of the economic picture, since being employed is also related to being able to make house payments and having disposable income to spend.

This is economic recovery is likely to take some time, but if the recession really has ended, on a technical level, then it at least means that things should stop getting worse, and that the situation will improve — albeit incrementally.