The nation's economy took another hit this week. As expected, numbers for new jobs last month fell short by almost 80 percent of what was being predicted.

The struggle on the national level is not being felt as hard here, as Amarillo has seen continued growth for the last eight months in a row, according to economists.

At the start of the country's business day, economists were hopeful that the last month would show an increase of up to 100,000 new jobs across the U.S. That number came in at less than 20,000 and unemployment rose to 9.2 percent, more signs that the recovery, while still on going is taking a longer time than expected.

"The recession we've endured is such a significant event that it's going to take longer than we're accustomed to deal with and work our way out of," said Karr Ingham, Economist for Happy State Bank. "So, it'll take a few more months to see if we have significant trends or not but our growth has slowed down."

Economic indicators like jobs and the gross domestic product are scrutinized carefully by economists hoping to see bigger signs of recovery.

"One thing to watch out for is at what level the various sectors of the economy return to pre-recession levels at the national level," said Ingham. "We haven't done that in fact, we're a way off from that."

But the news isn't all bad, especially for Texas and the insulated metro areas that haven't seen the knockout economic punches the rest of the country has gone through, according to Ingham.

"So, it's a month to month watch here in the Panhandle to see when we pick up some steam. Positive momentum and the various sectors of measurement and employment, and when we make our way back to where they were prior to the recession."

Case in point, tax receipts for Amarillo are not only up, they've gone up consistently for the last eight months, according to Michelle Bonner, Director of Finance for the City of Amarillo.

"(Tax receipts are) definitely much better, for the year, and ours started back on October 1, we're up more than $3 compared to the prior year, about nine percent."

And she says she sees no reason why those numbers won't continue to increase.