Austan Goolsbee Downplays Jobs Report, Economy: Don't Call It A Jobless Recovery

WASHINGTON (AP/The Huffington Post) -- A top White House economic adviser says the upward tilt over the past six months in new jobs is a better indicator of the nation's employment picture than a gloomy report Friday that warned of slow growth ahead.

Austan Goolsbee, who heads the president's Council of Economic Advisers, says the addition of a million new jobs over the past six months shows "we have improved a long way from when the economy was in rescue mode."

"If we face stiff headwinds, that are shocks like the -- like the Japanese earthquake, we have to deal with that, but I think the -- the trend is relatively clear," Goolsbee said on "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."

Employers added 54,000 jobs in May, the fewest in eight months, and Friday's report showed that the unemployment rate had inched up to 9.1 percent.

Goolsbee tells ABC's "This Week" that the jobs report indicates the economy was "somewhat slowed," but he insists the numbers are "highly variable."

“It's not a jobless recovery. That is an incorrect phrase," he told Amanpour. "After the last recession, in this comparable period, post-recession, we had lost 100,000 jobs. We've added more than 2 million jobs. There's a major difference between a jobless recovery and a very deep hole that we're climbing our way out of, and that is what -- the position we're in."

President Barack Obama also sought to downplay Friday's bleak jobs report in his weekly internet address.

"We're facing some tough headwinds," Obama said. "Lately, it's high gas prices, the earthquake in Japan and unease about the European fiscal situation. That will happen from time to time."

Comments

[stacibinoregon]

12:33 PM on 06/06/2011

I will not be tricked again.

[freegeg]

12:12 PM on 06/06/2011

"Don't criticize me"

Barack Obama

[nothingchanges]

11:49 AM on 06/06/2011

The top 1% of Americans are in better financial condition today then they were before the "financial crisis". Why not? Wall Street got the bail outs, not Main Street.

That's the only "recovery" that apparently matters to most politicians, since the 1% are the ones who, for the most part, fund their campaigns.

The other 99%, it would seem, make no difference in their electability, so why bother?

Representative government in it's most perverse capitalistic form..........

they represent the ones that pay them for their representation.

[Peppers Dad]

06:54 AM on 06/09/2011

Our economy would be humming along at a fantastic (capitalist) pace now if they'd bailed out Main Street instead of the pirates. It would be stunning and places like this would cease to exist.

[Ernst Angst]

11:47 AM on 06/06/2011

There is always more misery in the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
--V. Hugo

[intolleft]

11:31 AM on 06/06/2011

%u201CIt's not a jobless recovery. That is an incorrect phrase,"

How about a "job-devoid recovery?"

[Thremnir]

11:00 AM on 06/06/2011

Don't call it a jobless recovery? Ask those who are unemployed, ask those who have used up
their unemployment benefits and are now sleeping in their cars, assuming they have a car to
sleep in.
This is like the wife who comes home to find her husband dallying with the housekeeper, she
walks in on them and the husband says "Honey, it 's not what it looks like".

[halfpricefaustian]

10:56 AM on 06/06/2011

Don't call it a jobless recovery. Don't call it a voucher plan. Don't call it a war.
Everything can be fixed with a little spin.

[Thremnir]

11:05 AM on 06/06/2011

Yessir ! Call it anything but what it is .

[teamdoctor]

10:49 AM on 06/06/2011

Oh please! Here's the problem, we'd have to add 54,00 new jobs per week! in order to get to the "normal" 4% u/e in 5 years. This is a pure example of newspeak...read 1984.

[sympathy]

10:50 PM on 06/06/2011

China will never put up with that. We're talking a whole new trade deal in the works. Boy, have we been led around by the nose for the last 35 years!

[sharonsj]

10:34 AM on 06/06/2011

How about: an enforced vacation but you can't afford to go anywhere.

[StevieRae]

10:21 AM on 06/06/2011

The top 400 richest Americans {.5% of population} would disagree. Their % of income earned is steadily going up and even the top 2% are doing very well thank you. With most of the them sitting in foreign investments or financial institutions, they've move on beyond the US, they're no longer dependent on what happens in our economy.

[StevieRae]

10:24 AM on 06/06/2011

.5% of all earners.

[AZreb]

09:16 AM on 06/06/2011

Great difficulty in considering this a "recovery" - jobless or not. When a fast-food company is responsible for a large percentage of new jobs - minimum wage, part-time, no benefits, entry level - it doesn't seem like much of a recovery.

[Hwrd Sprague]

12:22 PM on 06/06/2011

Obama administration was even bragging about the hires by Micky D

[nothingchanges]

09:04 AM on 06/06/2011

"United States of America", is now almost an oxymoron. It's about as divided as I've ever seen.

The financial crisis was created by the reckless actions of a few, very powerful very wealthy individuals, who put their own well being above all else, gambled and lost.

Most people who gamble and lose, pay a price. Not this time. The ones who made the mess, got government bailouts, and tax funded bonuses amounting to millions of dollars.

The average hard working American, is the one who paid, and continues to pay, for something that was done to them, not something they did.

This is not the America I read about so long ago in high school. This is closer to a fascist state in it's actions, then that of a Democratic Republic.

Politicians should be made to pay as well. They passed the laws that allowed the corporations to move middle class jobs off shore. They passed the legislation that transferred most of America's wealth to a very, very small percentage at the top.

If America is broke, it's because our politicians acted in collusion with the rich and powerful to break it.

You broke it, you take the blame for it.

That goes for both parties, they both contributed to the mess and are too busy looking for scapegoats, pointing fingers, and dodging blame to be bothered with working to fix it.

To paraphrase Shakespeare "A plague on both your houses, you've made worms meat of our economy".

[sympathy]

10:52 PM on 06/06/2011

I think I love you.

[Political Piggy]

08:45 AM on 06/06/2011

Sorry Republican Tea Party - it isn't a "jobless recovery" because it is a recovery with the creation of net new jobs. Fox "News" accolytes enjoy talking about new taxes stifling job creation. What new taxes? There have been significant tax reductions during the Obama Administration, just like during the Bush Administration. Is the argument now that America should no longer have any federal taxes of any sort and that this will magically create infinite growth? Fox "News" accolytes enjoy claiming that new government regulations stifle growth. Which new government regulations? The only new regulations that even begin to come close to being significant are in the banking sector which, due to a lack of regulation, brought the country to the brink of total economic collapse, which the Obama Administration haulted and reversed. By the way - that part of our economy is adding jobs. It is fair to complain about the size and/or pace of growth, but it is simply incorrect to assert that whatever it is you don't like is due to things that simply do not exist.

[bluecollaramerican]

08:32 AM on 06/06/2011

Yes, the numbers are "highly variable" with unemployment at 9% and rising, public sector unemployment on the rise and prices for consumer goods rising.

[monza866]

08:09 AM on 06/06/2011

You will never generate great numbers of jobs until employers are sure of what it will cost to add employees.Higher taxes and new govt regulations don't inspire confidence.They will not create jobs just because Obama asks them to.

[avvocato]

10:42 AM on 06/06/2011

What higher taxes?

[monza866]

12:28 PM on 06/06/2011

Health are mandates,many of which have not been fully revealed in Obamacare,increase the cost of running the business . Obama just revealed the other day that he wants to raise taxes as well as terminate the Bush cuts.Higher unemployment taxes to the business and worker compensation. Business should be encouraged to create jobs not make it more difficult.