U.S. President George W. Bush said on Friday that the U.S. economy has slowed, but he insisted that his government will take actions to boost the economy.
"Losing a job is painful and I know Americans are concerned about our economy. So am I," Bush said at a press conference at the White House.
"It's clear our economy has slowed, but the good news is, we anticipated this and took decisive action to bolster the economy," he noted.
"I know this is a difficult time for our economy," said the U.S. leader. "But we recognized the problem early and we provided the economy with a booster shot."
Earlier, Edward Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, admitted the U.S. economy could contract in the current quarter.
"I'm still not saying that there's a recession," Lazear stressed. "We are going to have a weak growth quarter, and whether you call that a recession or not is something that we won't know for many months."
Lazear's remarks came after the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers cut their payrolls by 63,000 in February, the biggest job reduction in five years.
The weak showing defied economists who had been expecting an increase of about 25,000 jobs in payrolls.
The health of the job market is critical for the overall economy to grow. The big worry is that companies, affected by a severe housing slump and a credit crisis, might cut back on hiring further.
Fears that the economy could slide into a recession have been increasing as the economic growth nearly halted in the final quarter of last year. The world's biggest economy expanded at an annual rate of just 0.6 percent, down sharply from the brisk 4.9 percent pace in the third quarter.
Source: Xinhua
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