AlQa'dah 9, 1432, Oct 7, 2011, SPA -- The US unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 per cent in September, even as 103,000 jobs were added in the month, the Bureau of Labour Statistics said Friday. The number of jobs added exceeded analysts' expectations of just 60,000 new jobs, but remained too low to decrease the unemployment rate, which has hovered around 9 per cent for months. Some 14 million Americans remain without work, the bureau said. The added jobs included the return to work of about 45,000 telecommunication workers who had been on strike in August. The new jobs include 137,000 new positions in the private sector, but were off-set by a loss of 34,000 government jobs. The White House said the unemployment rate remained at "a level that is unacceptably high." "Clearly, we need faster economic growth to put Americans back to work," said White House economic advisor Katherine Abraham.
