Economists polled in the April Wall Street Journal Forecasting Survey "expect the recession to end in September, though most say it won't be until the second half of 2010 that the economy recovers enough to bring down unemployment."  More than a third of the economists expect unemployment to peak in the first half of 2010, as jobs lag economic recovery.  

Despite the grim news for jobs, economists are seeing more signs of a recovery in the broader economy this year. On average, the 53 economists surveyed expect the recession to end in September, compared with the October forecast last month. It marked the first time since the recession began that the economists didn't push the date of recovery further into the future. The survey was conducted April 3-6, before the release of trade data this week that led some forecasters to revise upward their outlook for the first quarter.

The below chart shows the economists' GDP projections in historical context (a link to the intereactive version of the chart is available below):

In explaining the April forecast, the Journal's Phil Izzo says not to look at this forecast as "optimistic," but to focus on the fact that this is the first time in months that the surveyed economists did not move their projection for the end of the recession forward.  Here is Izzo with Kelly Evans:

You can access all of the April Forecast's data in useful multimedia charts here.