Bloomberg's Ian Katz commented in a report today that Treasury Secretary Geithner said today that U.S. companies scarred by the financial crisis remain “very cautious” and are trying to get more productivity from current employees before hiring new ones.

Job growth is “not as fast as we need,” Geithner said in an interview broadcast today on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. Employers “are still cautious, still very cautious,” he said. “So they’ve been trying to get as much productivity out of their employees as possible.”

The rest of Mr. Katz's report below makes two things quite clear: 1. Even companies like JNJ are having to reduce their workforce and let employees go, and, 2. Taxes are going up in the near future.

eithner also said, in a separate interview on ABC’s “This Week” program, that allowing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to lapse at the end of this year wouldn’t hurt economic growth.

The U.S. economy lost 125,000 jobs in June while adding 83,000 private-sector positions, fewer than forecast. While the unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent from 9.7 percent, it has exceeded 9 percent since May 2009.

On NBC, Geithner said he doesn’t think the U.S. will suffer a so-called double-dip recession. “The most likely thing is you see an economy that gradually strengthens over the next year or two,” he said.

Companies announcing job reductions in July include New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson. The health- products company, under U.S. congressional investigation for a recall of children’s medicines, said it will reorganize the plant where the withdrawn drugs were made and cut 300 positions.

Geithner said he thinks the government should keep a role in housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while studying how much U.S. policy should encourage homeownership.

‘Carefully Designed Guarantee’

“We’re not going to preserve Fannie and Freddie in anything like the current form,” he said. “But I think there’s going to be a good case for taking a look at preserving or putting in place a carefully designed guarantee, so again, homeowners have the ability to borrow, to finance a home, even in a very difficult recession.”

The administration will look at the “the broad set of policies” the U.S. government has put in place “to help encourage homeownership and particularly help low-income Americans get access to affordable housing,” he said.

Falling home prices, together with easy availability of credit and government policies promoting homeownership, pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the brink of collapse in 2008. The Treasury seized them in September of that year and has spent $145 billion so far to keep them solvent. In April, government agencies asked for public comment on how to fix the system.

‘Responsible Thing’

Tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 during former President George W. Bush’s administration are scheduled to expire at the end of this year, and an election-year fight looms over whether to continue them. President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats want to extend the tax cuts for families earning up to $250,000 a year while allowing those for wealthier taxpayers to expire.

“We think that’s the responsible thing to do because we need to make sure we can show the world that they’re willing as a country now to start to make some progress bringing down our long-term deficits,” Geithner said on ABC.

Republicans aim to continue the tax cuts for high-income people as well, contending that taxes shouldn’t be raised during the economic recovery. They say the economic harm of ending any of the Bush tax cuts would outweigh deficit concerns.

Geithner, 48, said he didn’t have concerns about the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer- protection agency created by the financial-regulatory overhaul Obama signed into law July 21.

Warren, who heads the congressional panel overseeing the Treasury’s bailout program, “has huge credibility and she played a decisive role in helping make the public case for reform,” Geithner said on the ABC program. “She was early on this, way ahead of everybody else.”

Geithner said July 22 he had not yet made a recommendation to Obama on who should head the agency.

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