Obama hails downtick in jobless rate

US President Barack Obama Friday welcomed a downtick in the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent, despite a slowdown in overall job creation, but said there was more work to do to revive the economy. “We welcome today’s news that our businesses created another 121,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate ticked down,” Obama said, but warned there would still be “ups and downs” along the road to recovery. US unemployment dropped unexpectedly to 8.2 per cent in March, the lowest rate in more than three years, despite a mixed picture on hiring and apparent weakness in the retail sector. Despite the positive headline number, the Labour Department reported on Friday that the number of unemployed workers hovered close to 13 million and hiring slowed, a warning sign that the recovery may be in trouble. The economy created a meager 120,000 jobs in March, much lower than the 200,000 forecast by economists, who were left scratching their heads over the impact unseasonably warm winter and other anomalies may have had on the statistics. Chief among them was the spectacular collapse of hiring in the retail sector, which did not seem to tally with strong sales and spending reported in the sector. Retail trade employment fell by 34,000 in March, with most of the losses coming from large merchandise stores. That contrasted sharply with Americans’ reporting they spent nearly 20 per cent more in shops, restaurants, online and at petrol stations last month, according to a report from the Gallup polling organization. Perceptions that the economy has turned a corner will be hurt by the latest figures, so too President Barack Obama’s hopes of approaching the November election buoyed by a strong recovery. “We are making progress but there is still a long way to go,” said Gene Sperling, a key economic advisor to Obama, stressing the White House does not read too much into one month’s data, whether good or bad. “The bottom line is that in the first three months of the year the economy has created 600,000 jobs,” he added. Unemployment remains high by US standards and Obama remains vulnerable to rising gasoline prices and an external shock that would slow the recovery. This time last year the economy had also appeared on track, but a failure by Obama and his Republican foes to reach a deal to cut spiraling US debt caused a slump in confidence. Economists had expected the US unemployment rate to stay unchanged at 8.3 per cent, and the economy to create some 200,000 jobs.