Ending the longest contraction since World War II, the US finally grew in the third quarter of this year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.

The nation’s gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 per cent in the three months ending in September, matching the economy’s average annual growth rate from the last 80 years. But the end of government programs to encourage spending on things like cars and houses, alongside employers’ continued reluctance to hire more workers, means the recovery may not last, economists say.

“The big picture perspective is that things have improved,” said Jan Hatzius, chief US economist at Goldman Sachs. “The question is, how sustainable is this growth going forward?” Job-seekers, he says, likely will not see the benefits of a recovery for months to come.

The spike in GDP came from a somewhat shrunken base. The economy had been falling for four straight quarters, bottoming with a 6.4 per cent decline in the first three months of this year, the steepest quarterly fall since 1982.

Much of the growth in Thursday’s report can be attributed to the billions in federal aid devoted to economic renewal, economists say. “That alters the dynamic of a recession and a recovery, and what you’re left with, to some degree, is an artificial recovery,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak, an investment research firm. “Over the next several quarters, the support for the economy on the part of the government wanes and the economy has to find its own footing.”

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