This monster jobs report comes at a good time for President Obama
Businesses stepped up their hiring in July, adding 163,000 jobs during the month according to a Labor Department report released Friday.
This increase beat the 95,000 jobs economists had forecast. However, the unemployment rate however rose higher anyway to 8.3%.
The stock indices responded by hitting new highs not seen since May, rising 226 points (1.76%) to 13,105 by 2pm and the Nasdaq also rising 63 points (2.17%) to 2972 points.
This news comes at a time when some other indicators had signaled weakness in the U.S. economy and with the Euro Zone still facing perennial problems.
There was continuing weakness in government hiring, with a net loss of 9,000 jobs, while the private sector surprised many with a 172,000 job increase.
Manufacturing gained 25,000 jobs with the auto industry accounting for about 20,000 of these. Education and health and the hospitality industry were also leaders in hiring.
However, of some concern is the fact that most of the leisure industry jobs are low-paying jobs.
The unemployment rate for Hispanics edged down in July to 10.3% while other groups remained unchanged.
Commenting on the report on Friday afternoon, President Obama noted that the economy has added private sector jobs for 29 straight months, for a total of 4.5 million jobs.
“But let’s acknowledge that we still have too may folks out there still looking for work, more work to do on their behalf — not just to reclaim all the jobs lost during the recession but also to reclaim the financial security many Americans feel has been slipping away from them,” Obama said.
The President called on Congress to approve his proposal to keep the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000 a year and praised the Senate for voting this week to approve the plan. However he criticized the House for pushing a Republican alternative to extend the tax cuts to high-income earners as well.
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