The US Chamber of Commerce kicked off its 100th birthday celebration with a speech by the organization's President Tom Donohue on unemployment. 'Our nation's highest priority must be to put Americans back to work. To achieve this goal, our economy has to grow much faster than it is today. Unfortunately, we think the economy will actually slow down in the early months of the year. We expect growth to average about 2.5 percent in the first half and then work its way back to about 3 percent by the end of the year.'