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JEFFREY BROWN: On this final Friday before Election Day, there was word that jobs are on the increase, but so is unemployment.
The numbers were seized upon by the presidential candidates as they began making closing arguments on an issue that's been front and center throughout the campaign.
Did an economy in need of a spark find one in October? U.S. employers across nearly all sectors were hiring, for a net gain of 171,000 new jobs. The Labor Department also revised its August and September figures higher, by 84,000.
All told, it signaled slow, but steady growth, and it was news that President Obama wanted to play up in the campaign's final weekend, especially in one critical state.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: O.H.!
CROWD: I.O.!
BARACK OBAMA: O.H.!
CROWD: I.O.!
BARACK OBAMA: O.H.!
CROWD: I.O.!
JEFFREY BROWN: The president made three stops in the BuckeyeState, starting in Hilliard, just outside Columbus.
BARACK OBAMA: In 2008, we were in the middle of two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And today, our businesses have created nearly five-and-a-half million new jobs.
And this morning, we learned that companies hired more workers in October than at any time in the last eight months.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JEFFREY BROWN: And the trend line seemed promising as well. Since July, the economy has added an average of 173,000 jobs per month, up from just 67,000 a month in the spring.
At the same time, though, the unemployment rate ticked up a 10th of a point in October to 7.9 percent, as more people began looking for work again.
In West Allis, Wis., the president's Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, focused on that number, insisting again we can do better.
MITT ROMNEY (R): He said he was going to lower the unemployment rate down to 5.2 percent right now.
Today, we learned that it's actually 7.9 percent, and that's nine million jobs short of what he promised. Unemployment is higher today than when Barack Obama took office.
JEFFREY BROWN: What's more, Romney warned, sticking with the president's economic policies will guarantee gridlock and worse.
MITT ROMNEY: Unless we change course, we may be looking at another recession. You can choose real change.
You know that if the president is reelected, he will still be unable to work with the people in Congress. He has ignored them, he's attacked them, he's blamed them.
The debt ceiling will come up again, and shutdown and default will be threatened, chilling the economy.
JEFFREY BROWN: In turn, the president his opponent of trying to scare voters over their economic futures.
NARRATOR: Who will do more for the auto industry?
JEFFREY BROWN: He pointed to a Romney ad running in Ohio that charges Jeep is shipping jobs to China.
BARACK OBAMA: You have got folks who work at the Jeep plant who've been calling their employers, worried, asking, is it true? Are our jobs being shipped to China? And the reason they are making these calls is Gov. Romney's been running an ad that says so, except it's not true.
JEFFREY BROWN: Chrysler has said it has no plans to move the jobs. The Romney campaign insists it's standing by its claim.
There promised to be much more battling over economic policy, with the race in a dead heat going down to the wire.
And we look now at the jobs picture with two economists with ties to the presidential candidates. John Taylor of StanfordUniversity and the Hoover Institution, he advises the Romney campaign on economic issues.
And Austan Goolsbee of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, he served as President Obama's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers until last year.
Well, Austan Goolsbee, to the extent possible, set aside the rhetoric of the campaign if you can for a moment. Tell us about the bigger picture.
What strikes you most, what worries you most about the jobs picture now and in the coming years?
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, University of Chicago: Well, I would say any reputable economist says every month don't just take any one month's numbers. Try to take a step back and look at the trend. That's far more accurate and there's less noise in it.
I think if you look at the trend, the overall job creation has been relatively solid for the last three months. The overall growth rate of the economy is the most worrisome thing, that it's been modest, you know, moderate growth, and that that is about the fastest growth rate of all the advanced countries of the world.
I think the underlying fear that we have is, this is not a strong period in the whole world and there are a lot of threats coming from the slowdowns in Asia and in Europe that we're trying to overcome. And we have got to get the growth rate higher if we want to see faster job creation.
