Leader Cantor Statement on February Jobs Report

 

The Employment Situation in February

Posted by Austan Goolsbee on March 04, 2011 at 10:15 AM EST

Today’s employment report shows that private sector payrolls increased by 222,000 in February, marking 12 consecutive months of growth that has added 1.5 million jobs at private firms. The unemployment rate fell for the third straight month to 8.9 percent. The 0.9 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate over the past three months is the largest such decline since 1983, and it has been driven primarily by increased employment, rather than falling labor force participation.

Though unemployment remains elevated, we are seeing signs that the initiatives put in place by this Administration – such as the payroll tax cut and business tax incentives for investment – are creating the conditions for sustained growth and job creation. The steep decline in the unemployment rate and the overall trend of economic data in recent months has been encouraging, but there is still considerable work to do to replace the jobs lost in the downturn. We will continue to work with Congress to find ways to reduce spending, but not at the expense of derailing progress in the job market, making the investments we need to educate our workers, investing in science, and building the infrastructure our companies need to succeed. 

In addition to the increases last month, the estimates of private sector job growth for December (now +167,000) and January (now +68,000) were revised up. Overall payroll employment rose by 192,000 last month. The sectors with the largest payroll employment growth were professional and business services (+47,000), education and health services (+40,000), manufacturing (+33,000), and construction (+33,000). State and local government experienced a large decline (-30,000), and has shed jobs in 14 of the past 16 months.

The overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the past two years, but there will surely be bumps in the road ahead.  The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision.  Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement on the February jobs report:
“Today’s jobs report showing 192,000 new jobs is an encouraging sign that businesses are beginning to hire and people are getting back to work. However, an unemployment rate of 8.9% is still too high and we need to continue our efforts to make sure private sector employers have sure footing to invest in new employees and expand their businesses.
“House Republicans are taking decisive action to foster a pro-growth environment in this country. Our Committee Chairmen are engaged in a top to bottom review of job-destroying federal regulations and working on important pro-growth policies like tax reform and trade agreements. This week, we passed a bill to keep the government running while cutting spending by $4 billion. We also repealed the onerous 1099 provision from the ObamaCare law so that businesses aren’t bogged down in paperwork by a needless tax mandate. Interestingly enough, both of these items were passed with significant support from our Democrat colleagues. Hopefully this means they will join us in supporting further measures to fund our government responsibly and ensure that Washington begins to live within its means, but I remain concerned that their only proposals to date have been more status-quo, stimulus-style spending.
“Republicans are responding to voters’ calls in the last election to change the culture in Washington. To put it simply: less government spending equals more private sector jobs. We will continue our efforts to cut spending, overreaching regulations and government waste so that businesses have certainty to grow and create jobs and more people can get back to work.”