The economic news Thursday was encouraging.

For the first time in months, during one of the most serious financial declines since the great depression, numbers are indicating the economy actually grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter.

While economists caution the growth may be difficult to sustain and the national economy slow to recover, many say the United States is turning the corner at last.

That’s good for a country weary of almost daily bad economic news. Just about everyone has, at some level, been affected by the recession.

From business closings, to pay-cuts, to downsizing and layoffs — hundreds of thousands of American citizens have lost their jobs, watched their income dwindle or faced reductions in retirement payments and other shortfalls.

For many companies, employees have taken steep pay cuts, furloughs, reduced benefits and cut their hours so their businesses could stay afloat.

We hope the companies that have been forced to make those tough decisions remember their workers as the economy picks up and business turns around.

That can’t happen immediately — we still have a long way to go as a nation to get the economy back on its feet. But all indications are that it will happen — that it is already beginning to happen.

And, when good economic times return, we expect those companies to restore employee pay and hours and rehire local workers.

In the long-term picture, that only makes good economic sense: You have to have an employed workforce so people will have money to spend – which fuels most of the economy, everything from the housing market to banks to car dealerships to grocery stores and restaurants — everything.

Sure, it looks good on investor statements to cut the bottom line on expenses – the greatest of which is usually payroll, but that means putting the very people who keep companies afloat out of work.

In the long-run, that mentality can cripple an economy.

Over the past couple of years, the United States has suffered the consequences of such shortsighted make-a-fast-buck mentality.

If we don’t want to repeat the recession again in the immediate future, our businesses and industries have to take a longer view of fiscal responsibility when it comes to workforce management.

Getting people back to work at fair pay levels is the only real way to stabilize the economy for any length of time.