US unemployment stable at 9.1 per cent

Oct 7, 2011, 12:48 GMT

Washington - The US unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 per cent in September, even as 103,000 jobs were added in the month, the Bureau of Labour Statistics said Friday.

The number of jobs added exceeded analysts' average expectations of just 60,000 new jobs, but remained too low to decrease the unemployment rate, which has hovered around 9 per cent for months. Some 14 million Americans remain without work, the bureau said.

The jobs gain 'is consistent with the subpar outlook for real GDP and personal income growth for the second half of this year, but not a double dip. Unemployment rates indicate continued structural issues,' Wells Fargo bank said.

The added jobs included the return to work of about 45,000 telecommunication workers who had been on strike in August.

The new jobs include 137,000 new positions in the private sector, but were off-set by a loss of 34,000 government jobs.

The White House said the unemployment rate remained 'unacceptably high.'

'Clearly, we need faster economic growth to put Americans back to work,' White House economic advisor Katherine Abraham said.

President Barack Obama has been pushing a 447-billion-dollar proposal to jolt the economy and stimulate hiring. In a press conference Thursday, he said there was 'no doubt' the economy is weaker now than it was at the beginning of the year and urged Congress to act on his jobs measures.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Friday stressed the depth of the recession.

'The hole created by that terrible recession is deep, and we have climbed part of the way out of it, but we have further to go,' he said. 'And that's why, again, the president believes we cannot sit pat and do nothing in the face of an economy that's not growing fast enough and ... unemployment that is far too high.'

Opposition Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, have objected to some of the Obama measures in part because of tax increases to pay for the plan.

The weak economy and high unemployment are already major political issues for Obama heading into presidential elections next year.

The latest labour statistics showed a revised 57,000 jobs added in August, after the initial government report showed no jobs added in the previous month.