Washington, DC--Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) said the August jobs report is yet another example of how the American people need its elected representatives to work together to boost the economy, rather than hold the recovery hostage for political gain.  The U.S. Department of Labor reports the economy added 96,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1%.  Over the past two years, approximately 4.5 million private sector jobs have been created, with job growth for 30 consecutive months.  

Employment grew at a larger rate according to the ADP National Employment Report, which is derived from actual payroll data and measures the change in total non-farm employment each month.  That analysis claimed a 201,000 job gain, double the report issued by the Labor Department. 

Rep. Engel said, “Gaining 96,000 jobs may not be where we want to be, but at this point four years ago we were losing jobs at a rate of over 700,000 a month. Perhaps if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that fixing the economy was the Republican top priority, and not defeating the President, we would have passed a jobs bill and not have wasted so much time passing 33 separate bills to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are millions of current job openings right now, but not enough qualified workers to fill them.  We need to reinvest in job training and making school more affordable so people can re-train for 21^st century jobs.  The economy has changed over the years and our workforce, and our government need to change with it.  We cannot use the House Majority’s budget plan which slashes everything – including job training programs and college assistance – for the sake of preserving tax cuts for the wealthy. 

“Leadership and compromise go hand in hand, and if the House Majority had the well-being of the country at heart, we would have been working together, during these difficult economic years, to bring our economy back.  Jobs reports such as this one should be a call to action.  That misses the point of public service – the American people are looking to us for help and we need to answer that call.”

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