The road to recovery of the US economy is not going to be straight as all have to work every single day to get the economy moving again, President Barack Obama has said.
He was commenting on the latest governmental figures which showed that more than 85,000 jobs were lost in December last year, while the unemployment rate remained at 10 percent.
“The jobs numbers that were released by the Labor Department are a reminder that the road to recovery is never straight, and that we have to continue to work every single day to get our economy moving again,” Obama said in a statement at the White House.
“For most Americans, and for me, that means jobs. It means whether we are putting people back to work,” he added.
US President said job losses for the last quarter of 2009 were the one-tenth of what were being experienced in the first quarter.
“In fact, in November we saw the first gain in jobs in nearly two years. Last month, however, we slipped back, losing more jobs than we gained, though the overall trend of job loss is still pointing in the right direction,” he said.
Obama said that Recovery Act had been a major force in breaking the trajectory of recession and stimulating growth and hiring.
“This underscores that we have to continue to explore every avenue to accelerate the return to hiring,” he said.
Earlier, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs had said the latest jobs report was disappointing as 85,000 people have lost their jobs last month.
“We are in a very tough economic environment. Since this recession officially began more than two years ago, seven million jobs have been lost,” Gibbs said at his daily press briefing.
He said that the report has some bright spots as which gives hope. As compared to first quarter of 2009, when on an average 691,000 jobs a month were being lost, in the last quarter only one-tenth, about 69,000, jobs were lost.
“So that trend obviously is moving in the right direction,” he asserted.
“The President wakes up concerned every day about where this economy is, understands that millions are hurting whether they are in last month’s job losses or the job losses stretching past those two years since this recession officially began,” Gibbs said.
