NEW YORK CITY—Winter may be over in more ways than one, in theview of Cushman & Wakefield's KenMcCarthy. Given April's strong national jobsreport from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, it appearsthat “the underlying strength of the economy is finally starting toemerge,” McCarthy writes in a report issued this past Friday.

“For the first three months of 2014, we had beenexpecting the economy to shift into a higher gear led by a surge inhiring as businesses begin to take more risk to generate top-linegrowth,” writes McCarthy, C&W's senior managing director,economic analysis and forecasting. That shift evidently is takingplace: April's tally added 288,000 jobs to the domestic economy,bringing unemployment down from 6.7% to 6.3% inthe largest single-month decline in the jobless rate since1949.

It was accompanied by upward revisions in thenumbers for February and March, to 222,000 and 203,000,respectively. “You may recall that February job growth was firstestimated at 175,000, so the growth in February has been revised upby more than 25%.,” McCarthy notes.