Opinions vary on rise in new jobs

WASHINGTON — For months, Sen. Bob Bennett, Congress' Joint Economic Committee chairman, voiced doubts about government reports that the ongoing economic recovery was coming without creating many new jobs.

He was vindicated Friday.

The Labor Department not only reported that the national unemployment rate dropped to 6 percent in October, when at least 126,000 new jobs were formed, but it also revised data from earlier months to show far more jobs were created back then, too — as Bennett suspected. It said at least 160,000 were created in August and September.

"No matter how you cut it, the economy is adding new jobs at a rapid pace and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future," Bennett, R-Utah, said at a hearing Friday to examine the monthly report on unemployment.

The jobless rate also fell in Utah last month, dropping 0.2 percentage point to 4.8 percent, according to a Friday report from the Utah Department of Workforce Services. About 58,000 Utahns remained unemployed, which is a marked improvement over the 72,200 workers without jobs during the same month last year.

"We can finally put the nail in the coffin of the jobless recovery," Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics, told the Associated Press. "We are back on a rising job track."

But Mark Knold, senior economist with Utah's DWS, said Mayland and others may be jumping the gun. Knold said the actual number of jobs in Utah declined by 2,100, or 0.2 percent, in October compared to the same month last year.

"I don't see a change at all in the Utah situation," he said. "Employment is down 0.2 percent. I put more stock in that than in the unemployment numbers. We're still facing fewer jobs this year than last."

Ditto the national economy, Knold said.

"We've shrunk the gap," he said. "That's what they're crowing about, the fact that we've shrunk the gap. But it's still a deficit."

Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., ranking Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, complained that too many of the nation's new jobs are for low pay and few benefits.

"I hate to be the skunk at the picnic," he said. But he noted that 300,000 high-tech workers are unemployed in Silicon Valley in his state. "It's one thing to say, great, fellows, you can work 20 hours a week at Wal-Mart — of course, without benefits . . . — but the good jobs aren't there."