Trump Economic Advisor Cohn on March Jobs Report: Lot of Good News in Here
According to the Labor Department, the U.S. economy added 98,000 jobs in March, far below economists’ expectations of 180,000. Gary Cohn, chief economic advisor to President Trump, discussed the report and the outlook for the U.S. job market and economy.
Pointing to the unemployment rate – which declined from 4.7% to 4.5% in March – as well as the U6 unemployment rate, Cohn remained bullish about the state of the job market.
“When you look at the jobs report as a whole, I think there’s an awful lot of good news in here,” Cohn told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.
Cohn also cautioned to not focus too much on the monthly data but to look at the broader trends.
“So, we are seeing many Americans get back into the workforce and getting jobs created. Yes, we would have liked to see more jobs created, but remember, this is just one month. As I came on last month I reminded you then, when we had a number that exceeded, that it was just one month numbers as well.”
The Atlanta Fed’s GDP tracker is forecasting an annualized growth rate of 1.2% for the first quarter of 2017, but Cohn said the pullback from a robust fourth quarter wasn’t necessarily concerning since the first quarter is typically “tough” for the economy.
According to Cohn, the administration is working to boost overall GDP and job growth for the year and beyond.
“We are very, very concerned about economic growth and we’re doing everything we can to create economic growth and we create economic growth by creating great jobs for Americans. Jobs and the jobs report is very important to us.