Payrolls are vaulting to a faster pace of about 200,000 a month, after averaging 167,000 in the second half of last year, according to Maury Harris of UBS Securities LLC and Allen Sinai of Decision Economics Inc., Bloomberg News reported yesterday. "The new normal is 200,000," said Sinai, chief executive officer of the New York-based investment-research company. Payrolls may rise 216,000 this month after climbing 236,000 in February, the most since November, he estimates. Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit, predicts employers will take on 2.5 million workers this year, after hiring 2.2 million last year. Businesses are adding employees to meet stronger demand and supplement workforces that have become increasingly stretched during the four-year expansion. Smaller companies are finding it easier to borrow as banks loosen terms on loans.
