U.S. unemployment rate drops to 9.4 percent

U.S. unemployment rate drops to 9.4 percent

2011-01-08 04:21:24 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- The United States on Friday said the unemployment rate in December dropped to 9.4 percent, reaching 12 consecutive months of growing.

The 0.4 percent decrease represented the 1.3 million private sector jobs added to the economy during 2010, the strongest growth in the private sector since 2006. The growth is credited to the initiatives passed by the U.S. government led by President Barack Obama.

Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said that the overall trend of economic data over the past several months has been encouraging but warned that there is still lots to be done.

Last month, the U.S. continued tax cuts for the middle class and extensions to unemployment insurance in order to sustain recovery. The Obama Administration is continuing focusing on initiatives to increase growth and job creation.

The measures being analyzed include providing incentives to encourage businesses to invest and hire here at home, investing in education and infrastructure, and promoting exports abroad.

Goolsbee added that, after reviewing several months, the estimates of private sector job growth for October and November, private sector employers added an average of 128,000 jobs per month in the last quarter of 2010.

The sectors with the largest payroll employment growth were leisure and hospitality, education and health services, temporary help services, and manufacturing. However, Goolsbee remarked that despite the advances, the unemployment rate is still high.

"Even though the unemployment rate fell sharply in December, it is still unacceptably high and we need robust employment growth in order to recover from the deep job losses that began over two years ago," the chairman said.

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