Obama says job creation, economic growth his top priority

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that his top priority is to jumpstart the nation's job creation and economic growth.

The anemic U.S. economy is not producing enough jobs, Obama said during his address at the Washington Navy Yard after the releasing of July labor market report.

The U.S. unemployment rate edged down to 9.1 percent in July from 9.2 percent in June, but still remained at an unacceptably high level, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Obama assured that things will get better in the world's largest economy, and called on different sectors to pitch in efforts to create more jobs for veterans and other unemployed Americans.

Obama held that the U.S. economy will get through the " tumultuous" times, amid deepening worries that the global economy has hit another soft patch following a string of weak data.

The U.S. unemployment rate has ticked up for three consecutive months through June, following a decline in the widely scrutinized jobs figure for four straight months.

The nonfarm sector added 117,000 new jobs last month, far short of the 200,000 monthly level that economists believe robust enough to slash the unemployment rate over the long run, but still offered some relief to investors after Wall Street plunged Thursday.

White House figures revealed that around 1 million U.S. veterans were unemployed as of June.

Obama urged the private sector to commit to hiring or training 100,000 unemployed veterans and their spouses by the end of 2013, and proposed tax credits for those businesses supporting the government's job-creation initiative.