Data point to slow recovery

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON

Friday’s mixed jobs report from the Labor Department was the latest in a series of signs that the U.S. economy remains locked in a frustrating cycle of crippled growth that’s better than the recent recession but not strong enough to boost employment much.

The phasing out of 225,000 temporary census workers left total U.S. payrolls down by 125,000 jobs in June, but the private sector expanded by 83,000 jobs and the nation’s unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent, the lowest level since last July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Though the census cutback led to the first monthly reduction in total U.S. jobs in six months, the expansion of private-sector employment for a sixth consecutive month confirmed that the economy continues its slow recovery from the Great Recession, which began in December 2007.

“All told, our economy has created nearly 600,000 private-sector jobs this year. That’s a stark turnaround from the first six months of last year, when we lost 3.7 million jobs at the height of the recession,” President Barack Obama said Friday.

Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.