According to reports released by the U.S. Labor Department, 163,000 jobs were added to the economy in the month of July, and although the number was higher than anticipated, there was a rise in the unemployment from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent.
In June only 64,000 were added to work force. "It's a lot better than we'd been seeing in the last few months, but it's still short of the kind of job growth we were seeing at the beginning of this year...I think this is about as good as it's going to get, " Paul Ashworth, chief United States economist at Capital Economics, told the New York Times.
But the unemployment rate has increased by a point percent. The Federal Reserve said that in order to keep the unemployment rate from slipping further 100,000 jobs need to be added to the market every month.
The economy has been the focal point of the Romney campaign against President Obama. No sooner did the Labor Department reveal the numbers than Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, presumed republican nominee for 2012 president, released a statement, "Today's increase in the unemployment rate is a hammer blow to struggling middle-class families," as reported by the Washington Post.
The Obama administration was quick to refute the statement, Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers told the Washington Post, "While there is more work that remains to be done, today's employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression."
According to the reports released by the labor department jobs in the manufacturing sector increased by 25,000; private sector firms hired more 172,000, but government jobs fell by 9,000. According to BBC News the number of discouraged workers also decreased from 852,000 to 267,000.
