Washington, DC -- While the top line number of 8.6% may sound good, today’s employment report holds very little good news for American workers with 315,000 leaving the workforce and only 120,000 new payroll jobs created nationwide.

"Since President Obama has been in office, unemployment has averaged 9.4%," said U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the top Republican and vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. "It's no wonder why Americans overwhelming said they believe our nation is still in recession. While I'm grateful for any new payroll jobs as opposed to job losses, this employment growth remains too weak to give real hope to America's long-term unemployed."  

“The Obama administration told the American people that the stimulus legislation would bring the unemployment rate down to 6.5% by now," added Brady. "Instead we have 5.8 million fewer jobs than were promised by the end of last year and are still 6.3 million jobs below where we were when the recession started."

"Uncertainty caused by Obama policies have kept business investment in buildings, equipment, and software weak," concluded Brady. "In the third quarter of 2011, real business investment was still $166 billion below its pre-recession level holding back job growth."