GOP cheers big increase in new jobs

WASHINGTON — The "jobless" economic recovery finally created a significant number of new jobs in March: 308,000, according to data released Friday.

Congressional Joint Economic Committee Chairman Bob Bennett, R-Utah, quickly led a GOP chorus saying that shows the economy has truly revived and that Democratic attacks on President Bush for an economy that is failing to create jobs are just political smoke.

"The increase in employment in today's report suggests that businesses have become increasingly assured that the economic expansion will endure, and they are becoming less reluctant to hire workers," Bennett said as his committee received monthly data on unemployment.

Even the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., acknowledged the big addition of 308,000 jobs — erasing in one month a seventh of the total number of jobs lost during the Bush administration amid war, terrorist attacks and the dot.com bust — "was the first significant job gain of the entire Bush presidency."

However, Stark said, "We are still in a deep hole, and we can't really talk about a jobs recovery until we see robust job creation for several months." He added, "Overall, the economy has lost 1.8 million payroll jobs since President Bush took office."

The data gave the administration a ready-made defense even as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry released a new TV ad Friday criticizing Bush on one aspect of the employment issue, outsourcing of jobs overseas.

"The policies are working," said President Bush, in West Virginia to promote the "Jobs for the 21st Century" training program.

Despite the addition of new jobs, the unemployment rate edged up to 5.7 percent from 5.6 percent in February because more people entered the labor force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, Bennett and Republicans painted a rosy picture with that data, while Democrats saw mostly gloom.

Bennett said, "It is the seventh consecutive month of job gains and brings us to a total of 759,000 jobs that have been added to U.S. payrolls in the past seven months." He said other continuing strong economic indicators in housing, business activity and manufacturing "will translate into more jobs as the recovery moves forward."

He added, "We have been expecting these job gains for some time, and today's report of job gains in March begins to close the gap between expectations and actual hiring."