Jobs Numbers Send SOS to Washington to Act Now on Jobs

Washington, DC – Today’s jobs numbers send another emergency message to Washington: act now on jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced 103,000 new jobs in September, including 45,000 Verizon workers returning to work after striking. The unemployment rate remained unchanged.

The Campaign for Americas Future’s co-director Robert Borosage said, “The jobs numbers continue to send an SOS to Washington to act now on jobs. This economy verges on another downturn. The few jobs being created are not sufficient even to employ the new people coming into workforce, much less to begin to reduce the 25 million in need of full time work. At current rates of growth, mass unemployment, declining wages and spreading poverty will continue. It is time to act.”

Borosage also pointed to the report of 535,000 jobs lost in state and local governments, which shows how budget cuts are hurting state and local governments. Overall government jobs went down 34,000.

Borosage said, “This is a time for action on jobs, not cuts. The Supercommittee, an offspring of the ridiculous debt ceiling posturing, should wake up. This is not the time for cuts; it is time to act on jobs. Any report that fails to begin with investment to create jobs should be dead on arrival. Conservatives keep talking about private job creators,” Borosage said, “but the reality is corporate profits are up, CEO salaries are up, but companies aren’t hiring, despite lavish tax incentives. They don’t lack confidence; they lack customers.”

“The Occupy Wall Street protests are just the tip of the iceberg if politicians do not respond to mass unemployment. There is work to be done; millions are desperate to work. America can borrow at record low interest rates. It is time to act.”