Romney's 500,000 Jobs a Month Is a Pipe Dream

Beyond Romney's comment that the U.S. should be adding half a million jobs per month, he also called Friday's report terrible and very disappointing. But real worry, six months ahead of the American presidential election, may be more focused on Sunday's French run-off between Socialist Party candidate François Hollande and incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"I think this employment report indicates that people can kind of take their eyes off the U.S., that things aren't extremely great here, but they're certainly not falling off a cliff or anything like that. So Europe is still going to be a major driver in the markets as it has been for the past, seemingly, forever," said Brad Sorensen, market and sector research director at Charles Schwab.

The Obama administration still faces the reality that 8% unemployment is historically high, and spun its own rhetoric Friday after the report.

"Since August the unemployment rate has fallen by 1.0 percentage point, from 9.1% to 8.1%," Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, wrote in a statement. "As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile."

Krueger singled out the manufacturing sector as a bright spot after the recession, thanks to 489,000 jobs added since January 2010. But as previously noted, Obama has avoided detailing some explanations about why manufacturing data has been so positive since 2010.

Romney's 500,000 number appears to be your typical exaggerated political rhetoric, but Obama must continue to hope to avoid one or two truly disastrous monthly employment reports before he can claim re-election.

"If the unemployment rate is down around 7.8%, 7.9% in November, which it will likely be, Obama's chances of winning increase; if it's north of 8.25%, Romney's chances of winning would increase," said Strauss.

-- Written by Joe Deaux in New York.

>Contact by Email.

Follow @JoeDeaux