Is the Great Recession about to end? This has been the dominant meme at least since June, when my local paper, the Anniston Star, ran a front page story by McClatchy's Kevin Hall with the headline, "Economists: Recession Nearing End as Unemployment Dips."

Sad to say, though, that if such news is the basis for optimism, in June or today, then we are in trouble.

Before I explain why, let's review Hall's article. The July job figures turned out to be much less bad than predicted. Job losses for the month were reported at a mere 247,000, which was about 25 percent less than the figure anticipated by forecasters.

That, coupled with optimistic labor market revisions for May and June, led some economists to declare that happy days may finally, if slowly, be getting here again. In this spirit, the British investment bank, Barclays Capital Research, concluded in a report, "June is likely to have been the last month of the US recession."

Looking for a job that can't be outsourced and that could provide a good income for years to come? Think infrastructure. In the 21st century, infrastructure isn't just roads, bridges, railroads, and water or sewer plants -- it's high-tech electrical grids, high-speed Internet cable and wireless networks.

Several factors have come together to make now a great time to get into infrastructure jobs. One is demographic -- a generation of baby boomers who've spent their careers maintaining water, sewer, and power plants are hitting retirement age. Another issue is America's longtime habit of deferring maintenance on its roads, bridges, and other infrastructure systems, says executive recruiter Stephen Hinton of Hinton Human Capital in Atlanta.

This has recently come home to roost with prominent infrastructure failures such as the 2007 Mississippi River bridge collapse in Minneapolis. With infrastructure crumbling, many cities are launching massive infrastructure-repair programs, Hinton says, sometimes under federal-government order.

With nearly 1.5 million Americans expected to exhaust their unemployment benefits by the end of the year, the stakes are high for a federally funded benefits extension that has been delayed in the Senate. While the House earlier passed a version of the bill by a wide margin, the Senate expanded the reach of the House bill by offering additional weeks of paid benefits to all states, rather than only those with the highest unemployment rates. While the Senate bill doesn't lack support, Republicans have objected to its funding and have been interested in adding amendments that don't have much favor among Democrats.

www.rollcall.com reports that the two sides are working to find agreement on the amendments, but the measure could otherwise take up much of the Senate's schedule next week.

This is better news for the unemployed, who are exhausting their benefits at a rate of 7,000 individuals a day, according to estimates from the National Employment Law Project.