Obama calls for faster progress in job creation
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U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday hailed the seventh straight month of job creation in the private sector, but acknowledged that faster improvement in job market is needed.
"July's jobs numbers reflect, in part, expected losses related to the census winding down. But the fact is, we've now added private sector jobs every month this year, instead of losing them, as we did for the first seven months of last year. And that's a good sign," the president spoke at Gelberg Signs, a small business in Washington, D.C. that is expanding and hiring workers.
Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000 in July, despite the fact that nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131, 000 for the month, the Labor Department reported on Friday.
"Our manufacturing sector that's been hit hard for as long as folks can remember has actually added 183,000 jobs so far this year. That's the most robust seven months of manufacturing growth in over a decade," said Obama.
The robust growth in manufacturing employment seems to give Obama good reason to push forward his "Make it in America" agenda, which aims to rebuild the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing and recover the roughly 5.6 million jobs the industry has lost over the past decade.
But Republicans mock the endeavor, saying it is designed primarily to save the jobs of endangered Rust Belt Democrats whose races could determine the balance of power in the midterm elections.
The president meanwhile acknowledged that progress made in terms of job creation is nothing satisfactory, considering the nearly 8.5 million jobs that have been lost since the start of the recession in December 2007.
"For America's workers, families, and small businesses, progress needs to come faster," he said. "Our job is to make sure that happens -- not only to lay the foundation for private sector job creation, but also to accelerate hiring to fuel the small businesses that are the engines of growth; to speed our recovery so it reaches the people and places who need relief not a year from now, not six months from now, but now -- right now."
Obama also expressed his appreciation of the U.S. Senate for passing the state-aid bill on Thursday. The bill, with a price tag of 26 billion dollars, is expected to save nearly 300,000 jobs of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees.
He also made the case for the small business bill being debated in Congress right now.
"It would create new small business lending funds to unlock credit for entrepreneurs. It would provide new tax cuts to small businessmen and women who want to accelerate investment in their companies and in our economy," he said.
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