As activity and orders picked up, firms took on new staff at the fastest pace for more than two years.
Chi Vy Ngo, an owner, said the restaurant had been heavily dependent on business from the World Trade Center, and on takeout orders picked up by car.
The survey also showed manufacturing production expanded at the quickest pace since May 2014, employment rose for the second month running and new orders picked up thanks to higher sales to domestic and overseas clients.
And so, even when orders pick up, many of the newly de-clerked and un-secretaried may not recall their laid-off assistants.
31, Pierre Beaudoin, the chief executive, said: "In aerospace, we seem to have turned the corner, with business jet orders picking up substantially in the fourth quarter".
Only with the arrival of Mr. Putin in 2000, he said, did tank orders pick up and the factory creak back to life.
The cost of protecting 1,000 jobs in this interim period until orders pick up would be a fraction of what was paid out to the banks".
Unemployment has come down slightly, to 5.7 percent, after peaking at more than 6 percent in August, and several companies in Taiwan's huge semiconductor manufacturing industry have announced plans to hire thousands of workers this year as orders pick up.
A slow and still-fragile recovery is taking hold across the country, as residential real estate improves, manufacturing orders pick up, consumer prices become firm and businesses express wary optimism about sales.
"We believe global consumption is set to rebound in the beginning of 2010 as orders pick up, particularly for infrastructure projects linked to stimulus projects.
