During the recession, the telecom industry was one of the only industries to see technological advances and growth, doing its part to help the economy. Technologies associated with telecom such as smartphone apps and IVR systems grew as well.

I’m hoping the telecom industry can continue to boost the economy, which some say is teetering on the brink of a double-dip recession.

Although the markets plummeted spectacularly yesterday (the Dow Jones fell 512 points, the worst drop since October 2008), they rebounded briefly this morning on the news that unemployment was down.

Experts expected a lot of new jobs in July after a weak May and June (only 56,000 new jobs). But the actual numbers were better than predicted—employers added 117,000 jobs last month. The jobs actually lowered the unemployment rate to 9.1%.

So on that news, the markets opened higher this morning. Then, for some reason, they dipped again. Then they rose again. Basically, they’ve been volatile all morning.

So far this year both the job and financial markets have seen…I’m not going to say steady…but growth.

On the job market, the downward slide ended last September, and companies have been adding jobs since then. Some months have been better than others, but most have been good.

February, March and April saw big gains (about 650,000 new jobs during those three months). Lulls came in January, May and June (only about 170,000 new jobs).

Some experts are saying we need about 150,000 new jobs every month just to keep up with population growth. If we call it around 950,000 in the first seven months of the year, that’s only like 135,000 new jobs every month.

The stock markets, meanwhile, made gains all year (up and down, for sure, but mostly up) until yesterday, when they lost all the gains for the year so far.

So where do we go from here? It doesn’t help that Europe is faltering. All the bailouts (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Greece again, maybe Spain and Italy around the corner) are making investors nervous, abroad and in the U.S. too. According to CNNMoney, European investors are liquidating equities, bonds and commodities into cash.

Who knows what’ll happen with any of it. But it’s nice to see the telecom industry growing and bringing its smartphone app and IVR friends along with it.