Capping off a dismal week in economic news, the Labor Department reported Friday that the pace of hiring slowed dramatically in May and the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent -- fueling Republican demands that the Obama administration change direction on its economic policy.
Employers hired just 54,000 new workers in May, the fewest in eight months. The numbers follow a string of other reports showing a slowdown in manufacturing and deepening slump in the housing market. The trendlines come at a bad time for President Obama, as the official field of 2012 Republican presidential candidates starts to take shape; the candidates are eager to make the economy a central plank in their campaigns.
"President Obama's policies made the recession worse and as a result more people are out of work," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who announced his jobs-centered White House bid Thursday, said after the report was released.
Republicans continued to hammer Obama with an infamous chart pushed by his administration during the 2009 stimulus debate which predicted unemployment would stay below 8 percent and that, by this time, the rate would be below 7 percent.
Instead, the pace of hiring has weakened dramatically from the previous three months, when the economy added an average of 220,000 new jobs. Private companies hired only 83,000 new workers in May -- the fewest in nearly a year. Local governments cut 28,000 jobs last month, the most since November.
FOX NEWS
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/03/employers-add-just-54000-jobs-in-may-unemployment-rate-rises-to-1-percent/#ixzz1OEKTwnQ9
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