Anyone who was hoping for significant improvement in the U.S. unemployment picture must surely have been disappointed when the latest jobs report was released last week.
The Labor Department's most recent figures show that the U.S. economy added only about 80,000 jobs in October -- below what economists had expected, or hoped.
That was the lowest job creation figure in four months, though it was fortunately just enough to bring down the country's unemployment rate slightly -- from 9.1 percent to 9 percent.
Hiring increased in areas such as entertainment, hotels, restaurants and temporary help.
But employment dropped by 20,000 in the important construction sector. That was the largest drop in construction employment in almost a year, and it does not bode well for the already-weak home-building market.
And the sad reality is, 80,000 new jobs in a nation of 312 million people -- including millions who are unemployed -- is not very encouraging. It takes monthly creation of 250,000 or more jobs to begin to make a serious dent in unemployment, and no one seems to believe that kind of sustained growth will be coming anytime soon.
The combination of low consumer demand for goods and services and businesses' justified fear of higher taxes and greater government regulation is suppressing potential investment and job growth.
If we want to grow jobs in the near future, it's vital that we free up our private sector and remove from above the free market's head the twin swords of heavier regulation and increased taxes.