Obama Speaks on Jobs and Economy

The following remarks were excerpted  from a speech President Obama gave on the state of the economy and the jobs market after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the July unemployment numbers on August 6 in Washington D.C. July unemployment was 9.5%.

We know from economic statistics what the stories of America’s families have been telling us for quite some time -– that the recession that we’re still recovering from is the most serious downturn since the Great Depression.  We also know, from studying the lessons of past recessions, that climbing out of any recession, much less a hole as deep as this one, takes some time.  The road to recovery doesn’t follow a straight line.  Some sectors bounce back faster than others.

President Obama

So what we need to do is keep pushing forward.  We can’t go backwards.  This morning, the Department of Labor released its monthly jobs report, showing that July marked the seventh straight month of job creation in the private sector.  So jobs have been growing in the private sector for seven straight months.

July’s jobs numbers reflect, in part, expected losses related to the census winding down.  But the fact is, we’ve now added private sector jobs every month this year, instead of losing them, as we did for the first seven months of last year.  And that’s a good sign.  (Applause.)

Meanwhile, our manufacturing sector that’s been hit hard for as long as folks can remember has actually added 183,000 jobs so far this year.  That’s the most robust seven months of manufacturing growth in over a decade.  (Applause.)

Just this morning, there was a report about the growing trend of manufacturing plants returning to the United States from overseas, instead of the other way around.

Same time, each of the Big Three automakers -– Ford, GM, and Chrysler -– two of which were on the verge of bankruptcy a little over a year ago, a liquidation bankruptcy that would have destroyed those companies –- all three U.S. automakers are now posting a profit for the first time since 2004.  (Applause.)  And since they emerged from bankruptcy, the auto industry as a whole has added 76,000 jobs.  So there’s some good trends out there.

That’s the good news.  But for America’s workers, families, and small businesses, progress needs to come faster.  Our job is to make sure that happens — not only to lay the foundation for private sector job creation, but also to accelerate hiring to fuel the small businesses that are the engines of growth; to speed our recovery so it reaches the people and places who need relief not a year from now, not six months from now, but now — right now…Click here to read the entire speech.