When the nation's 9.6 percent unemployment rate for August was released Friday morning, the reaction from economists was that things could have been worse.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed the unemployment rate rose with employment losses outpacing gains as the economy lost 54,000 jobs during the month.

The White House immediately responded to the report by noting that the private sector created 67,000 jobs; it was government employment that fell.

"This growth is consistent with other recent data reports indicating that the economy is continuing to recover, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than in the early spring," Christina Romer the chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisors, wrote.

The private sector job growth was not enough to make up for the loss of 114,000 temporary jobs with the U.S. Census. Jobs creation also was not able to keep up with the growth of the labor force, as 550,000 people joined the labor market.

Wall Street responded with gains in all the major indexes including 127.83 points for the Dow Jones industrial average to close at 10,447.93; a gain of 33.74 points in the Nasdaq to close at 2,233.75; and the Standard & Poor's 500 closed up 14.41 at 1,104.51.

"Basically, what we got this month was a report that looks like [those in] the last three months," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Washington D.C.-based policy research organization, Economic Policy Institute. "[Job growth is] nowhere near what we need to start dragging us out of the hole."

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, described the jobs report as showing the economy is "languishing."

A fact sheet released by the Economic Policy Institute showed that in order for the country to return to pre-recession employment levels, the economy would need to add 11 million jobs.

In his weekly radio address this morning, President Barack Obama noted the "declining economic security" faced by Americans this Labor Day weekend.

"We should recommit ourselves to our time-honored values and to this fundamental truth: to heal our economy, we need more than a healthy stock market; we need bustling main streets and a growing, thriving middle class," the president said in his address.

"The steps we have taken to date have stopped the bleeding: investments in roads and bridges and high-speed railroads that will lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs in the private sector; emergency steps to prevent the layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers and firefighters and police officers; and tax cuts and loans for small business owners who create most of the jobs in America. We also ended a tax loophole that encouraged companies to create jobs overseas," he said.

On Friday, Mr. Obama said in a Rose Garden speech that he intended to offer proposals in the coming weeks to spark the economy. Among the items he mentioned was a small business jobs bill he has been pushing that has about $12 billion in tax breaks for small businesses and a $30 billion fund for small business lending.

Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed that construction jobs were up, with heavy and civil engineering construction jobs and those of nonresidential specialty trade contractors outpacing the losses in residential construction by 19,000 jobs. Manufacturing was down by 27,000 jobs.

Service-providing jobs showed gains with the education and health services sector adding 45,000 jobs, professional and business services growing by 20,000 jobs and leisure and hospitality up by 13,000 jobs.

Overall, the government shed 121,000 jobs, with state governments cutting 14,000 positions.

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