Economy Creates 67,000 New Private Sector Jobs in August

It's not great job growth, or even good job growth. But excluding temporary census jobs, there was job growth.

Private employers hired more workers over the past three months than first thought, lifting hopes for the weak economy ahead of the Labor Day weekend. But the unemployment rate rose in August for the first time in four months as more people entered the market looking for work.

Companies added a net total of 67,000 new jobs last month and both July and June's private-sector job figures were upwardly revised, the Labor Department said Friday.

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Both June and July's figures were revised to show the private sector created more jobs in both months. The July figures were revised upward to 107,000 from 71,000. June was revised upward to 61,000 from 31,000. The revisions reflected smaller losses in construction, temporary help services and non-census government jobs.

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The economy lost nearly 8.4 million jobs in 2008 and 2009. This year, private employers have added back 763,000 jobs. But the unemployment rate has barely moved from the 9.7 percent rate in January.

No one is going to say that enough is being done, or has been done, to dig the economy out of the ditch into which it fell during the latter stages of the Bush administration. And with the economy not creating enough jobs to drive down the unemployment rate -- or even, for that matter, to keep the rate from going up -- it's clear that economy isn't moving quickly enough. So isn't it about time the President got up, as I've written before, to keep Congress in session (through election day, if need be) until it passed another jobs bill, hammering Republicans daily if they refused to budge?