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US unemployment tumbles to 9.4%
AFP - Saturday, January 8
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WASHINGTON (AFP) - – US unemployment fell dramatically to 9.4 percent in December, a boon for President Barack Obama but one tempered by evidence the economy is still not creating enough jobs.
Labor Department data showed the unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest level since May 2009, although many fewer jobs were created than expected.
Obama cautiously welcomed the news: "We know these numbers can bounce around from month to month, but the trend is clear," he said while visiting a window factory on Washington's outskirts.
"The economy added 1.3 million jobs last year. And each quarter was stronger than the previous quarter, which means that the pace of hiring is beginning to pick up."
Obama lauded the 113,00 jobs created by the private sector in December -- gains that were partially eroded by local government losses -- but cautioned the unemployment rate was still unacceptably high.
"You've still got a whole bunch of folks who are out there looking, still struggling. We've got a big hole that were digging ourselves out of."
The sharp drop in unemployment from November's 9.8 percent rate blew most economists' expectations out of the water.
But just 103,000 nonfarm jobs were created, many fewer than the 150,000 expected, reaffirming a trend of steady but unspectacular job growth.
Since December 2009, payrolls have grown by an average of 94,000 a month.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned that rate of growth was not enough to replace the 8.5 million jobs lost during the economic downturn.
"Payrolls expanded at an average of only about 100,000 per month in 2010 -- a pace barely enough to accommodate the normal increase in the labor force and, therefore, insufficient to materially reduce the unemployment rate," he told Congress.
"Considerable time likely will be required before the unemployment rate has returned to a more normal level," he said in prepared Senate testimony.
Bernanke said that most of his Fed colleagues expect the unemployment rate to be stuck around eight percent in two years' time, and the jobs market might not "normalize" before 2016.
The Labor Department reported that employment rose in the leisure, hospitality and health care sectors but "changed little in other major industries."
Despite predictions of a bump in retail hiring, to coincide with Christmas sales, the retail trade added just 12,000 jobs.
"There were 1.3 million discouraged workers in December, an increase of 389,000 from December 2009," the Labor Department said.
Senior Republican congressman Eric Cantor said the report was better than in previous months, but more needed to be done.
"Today's jobs report shows unemployment hovering around nine percent for the 20th consecutive month, and while the slight drop from last month is encouraging, we need to do more to make sure people can get back to work."
Although Republicans and Democrats have tip-toed toward closer cooperation in recent weeks, their prescriptions for putting Americans back to work are strikingly different.
Republicans insist that cutting government spending and repealing Obama's overhaul of health care will allow businesses to pick up hiring.
Republicans are "committed to a 'cut-and-grow' agenda," Cantor said.
Obama's administration has argued that trade, investment and tax incentives -- rather than spending cuts -- will boost job growth.
"Our mission has to be to accelerate hiring and to accelerate growth," Obama said.
"That depends on making our economy more competitive so that we're fostering new jobs in new industries, and training workers to fill them. It depends on keeping up the fight for every job and every business and every opportunity to spur growth."
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