The nation's ailing economy should begin to show signs of recovery by year's end, but that will be of little consolation to millions of additional Americans who will be losing their jobs well into 2010, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified Tuesday before the Joint Economic Committee.

There already are flickers of hope in the economy, Bernanke said. Consumer spending grew in the first quarter. The housing market is showing signs that it has bottomed out: Mortgage rates are down; inflation is low; some large banks showed a first-quarter profit. But even if the economy continues to improve, businesses will be slow to rehire workers, Bernanke said.

That will mean a sizable job loss in coming months, even though the economy has already shed 5 million jobs in the past 15 months, he said.

The unemployment rate, which jumped from 8.1 percent to 8.5 percent in March when more than 660,000 more jobs were lost, will surge past 9 percent in early 2010, Bernanke said. The Fed expects the rate to begin to decline before it reaches 10 percent, he said. "We expect the recovery will only gradually gain momentum and that economic slack will diminish slowly," Bernanke said. In particular, businesses are likely to be cautious about hiring, implying that the unemployment rate could remain high even after economic growth returns.