国际英语新闻:Romney slams Obama over August jobs report

CHICAGO, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday attacked President Barack Obama for August' s below expectations U.S. jobs report, charging that Obama had not lived up to his promises by presiding over months of high unemployment.

The two presidential campaigns traded policy barbs throughout the day Friday, as the news cycle was dominated by the monthly U.S. Department of Labor report that was largely received as disappointing.

Although the U.S. unemployment rate ticked down to 8.1 percent in August, non-farm payrolls rose by only 96,000 in August, significantly below market expectations of around a 125,000 job increase.

Furthering the disappointment, the Department of Labor also revised down the employment numbers from the previous June and July reports by a combined total of 41,000 jobs.

The Department of Labor additionally noted that both the civilian labor force and the labor force participation rate declined in August, meaning that some individuals became so discouraged they stopped looking for employment entirely.

The Romney campaign was quick to capitalize on the poor jobs report, hoping to take away some momentum from the Democratic National Convention (DNC) staged only the night before, when Obama had given the climactic headlining address.

In a statement sent out immediately following the Department of Labor release, Romney blamed the soft employment numbers on Obama' s economic policies, and contrasted Thursday night' s enthusiasm at the DNC with Friday morning' s data.

"If last night was the party, this morning is the hangover," Romney said in the statement, a jab at the president' s speech the night before.

"This is more of the same for middle class families who are suffering through the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. After 43 straight months of unemployment above eight percent, it is clear that President Obama just hasn't lived up to his promises and his policies haven't worked," Romney continued.

In an afternoon appearance in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Friday, President Obama countered back by praising the August jobs report as the 30th consecutive month of job creation, compared to around the 800,000 per month of job losses recorded when he first took office.

But while Obama championed the total of 4.6 million jobs created over his presidency, he acknowledged to supporters that the path was not easy, and argued that it was "going to take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that were building up over decades."