The US economy continues to improve but has a long way to go, said the White House on Friday and asked the Congress to pass legislations necessary in this regard.
“While more work remains to be done, today’s employment report provides further evidence that the US economy is continuing to heal from the wounds inflicted by the worst downturn since the Great Depression,” Alan B Krueger, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, White House, said.
“It is critical that we pursue the policies needed to build an economy that works for the middle class as we continue to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007,” he said after the release of the latest employment report.
According to the report, the economy has added private sector jobs for 35 straight months and a total of 6.1 million jobs have been added over that period.
In 2012, private businesses added 2.2 million payroll jobs.
The first report of private sector job growth for January is that businesses added 166,000 jobs.
The household survey showed that the unemployment rate was 7.9 per cent in January, up from 7.8 per cent in December.
Over the last 12 months, the unemployment rate has fallen by 0.4 percentage point.