Nonfarm payrolls jumped 243,000, the Labor Department said, as factory jobs grew by the most in a year. The gain in overall employment was the largest since April and outpaced economists' expectations for a rise of only 150,000.
The report pointed to underlying strength in the economy, despite expectations that growth will slow in the first quarter.
Economists had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 8.5 per cent. The rate is the lowest since February 2009 and has dropped 0.8 percentage point since August.
The decline last month reflected large gains in employment in the separate household survey from which the unemployment rate is derived.
US Treasury debt prices fell sharply on the report, while stock index futures surged. The dollar rose against the yen.
The continued labour market improvement could be a relief for Mr Obama who faces a tough re-election.
The report contrasted with a glummer assessment of the economy's prospects offered by the Federal Reserve last week and it could lessen chances of the central bank launching another round of asset purchases to spur a stronger recovery.
Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed was mulling further purchases to speed up the recovery. It has already bought $2.3 trillion in bonds to keep rates low and spur the economy.
"Certainly the Fed will welcome it but they remain worried about other areas of the economy, namely housing. This should not change its view on the economy," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak and Co in New York.
The US central bank said it would probably hold interest rates near zero at least through 2014, citing still-high unemployment.
Job gains last month were widespread, with even the transportation and warehousing sector increasing payrolls.
The tenor of the report was further strengthened by revisions to November and December payrolls data, which showed 60,000 more jobs created than previously reported.
In addition, average hourly earnings rose four cents, which should help to support spending. The report suggested that expectations of a slowdown in US economic growth in the first quarter were not yet impacting on companies' hiring decisions.
Employment in the private sector surged 257,000 - the largest gain since April. Government payrolls fell 14,000, the least amount since September.
The US economy grew at a 2.8 per cent annual rate in the final three months of 2011, quickening from 1.8 per cent in the third quarter. However, the rebuilding of stocks by businesses accounted for two-thirds of the rise, setting the economy up for a slower growth pace this quarter.
Growth is also seen moderating as the European debt crisis, which has already pushed some economies in the region into recession, takes an edge off US exports
Au nom de la relance de l’emploi, le président Obama a fixé jeudi l’objectif de faire des Etats-Unis la première destination touristique mondiale, une place actuellement détenue par la France, en accordant notamment davantage de visas aux Chinois et aux Brésiliens.
M. Obama a signé jeudi matin un décret appelant son administration à stimuler l’activité touristique. Il devait détailler ses propositions en milieu de journée dans le parc d’attractions Disneyworld d’Orlando (Floride, sud-est), fleuron du tourisme américain.
En 2010, les Etats-Unis étaient la deuxième destination touristique mondiale en termes d’arrivées, avec 59,8 millions de visiteurs, loin derrière la France, un pays cinq fois moins peuplé qui a accueilli 77,1 millions de touristes étrangers, selon l’Organisation mondiale du tourisme.
La Maison Blanche affirme que le secteur du tourisme et du voyage représentait en 2010 2,7% du produit intérieur brut et 7,5 millions d’emplois aux Etats-Unis, dont 1,2 million de postes soutenus par les seuls visiteurs étrangers.
La stratégie annoncée jeudi vise en particulier à séduire les touristes en provenance d’économies émergentes comme le Brésil, l’Inde et la Chine. La présidence affirme que le nombre de voyageurs chinois, brésiliens et indiens devrait augmenter respectivement de 135, 274 et 50% en 2016 par rapport à 2010, et que les touristes chinois dépensent en moyenne 6.000 dollars par personne et par séjour aux Etats-Unis.
Dans son décret, M. Obama a demandé au département d’Etat d’augmenter de 40% en 2012 la capacité de traitement des visas de tourisme en Chine et au Brésil, et de faire en sorte que les ressortissants de ces pays n’aient pas à attendre plus de trois semaines avant d’être reçus pour un entretien préalable à l’octroi de ce document.
Certains candidats considérés comme à "risque bas", comme les plus jeunes et les plus âgés des ressortissants de ces deux pays, pourraient être exemptés d’entretien s’ils ont déjà obtenu un visa dans le passé, a par ailleurs indiqué le département d’Etat.
La secrétaire d’Etat Hillary Clinton a demandé au département de la Sécurité intérieure d’inclure Taïwan dans la liste des pays dont les ressortissants n’ont pas besoin de visa américain, un programme d’exemption qui concerne jusqu’ici 36 pays - dont une grande partie de l’Union européenne - représentant 60% des touristes étrangers aux Etats-Unis.
"Chaque année, des dizaines de millions de touristes du monde entier viennent aux Etats-Unis. Et plus il y aura de gens à visiter les Etats-Unis, plus d’Américains retrouveront du travail", a déclaré M. Obama, cité dans un communiqué.
La présidence a inscrit cette initiative dans le cadre de sa campagne destinée à mettre en valeur les mesures prises unilatéralement par M. Obama en faveur de l’économie.
Le président démocrate, en campagne pour sa réélection le 6 novembre, oppose cet activisme au refus du Congrès, où ses adversaires républicains sont en position de force, d’adopter les mesures de relance dont il s’est fait l’avocat.
La Floride, durement touchée par la crise de l’immobilier et ses conséquences, est un Etat crucial dans la course à la Maison Blanche. La visite de M. Obama intervient en outre à deux jours de la primaire républicaine en Caroline du Sud, dans la même région.
Celui qui fait figure de favori pour l’investiture du parti conservateur, Mitt Romney, a ironisé jeudi sur la visite de M. Obama à Disneyworld. "C’est tout à fait approprié, parce qu’il semble vivre dans un monde de rêves", a-t-il dit, alors que son comité de campagne diffusait une vidéo critiquant le bilan de M. Obama en Floride, où le taux de chômage atteint 10%, 1,5 point de plus que la moyenne nationale.
NEW YORK -- US President Barack Obama on Thursday said US-led sanctions had reduced Iran's economy to a "shambles," in a robust defense of his policy towards Tehran following sharp Republican attacks.
Obama had previously
been reticent in
responding to
Republican campaign
attacks over his
efforts to deter
Iran's nuclear
program, but
addressed the issue
at a fundraising
event in New York, a
center of the US
Jewish community.
He said he had mobilized the world and built an "unprecedented" sanctions regime targeting Iran to state "unequivocally that we're not going to tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of this Iranian regime."
"We've been able to organize folks like China and Russia that previously would have never gone along with something like this," Obama said, referring to the support for sanctions of fellow UN Security Council permanent members.
"And it's been so effective that even the Iranians have had to acknowledge that their economy is in a shambles."
"When I came into office, Iran was united and the world was divided. And now what we have is a united international community that is saying to Iran, you've got to change your ways."
But Obama admitted that Iran had not yet decided to throw open its nuclear program to international scrutiny in a way that would help it move out of isolation.
Obama spoke hours after European Union nations agreed to sanction Iran's central bank, freezing assets used to finance its nuclear drive, in a move that further penalized and isolated the Islamic state.
The US leader signed into law a new set of US sanctions last month which target Iran's oil sector and seek to make foreign firms choose between doing business with Tehran or the United States.
Republicans seeking to turf Obama out of office in November's election have savaged his approach on Iran, saying that it shows weakness and have even said that the president has failed to prepare for the possibility of a military attack against Tehran's nuclear program.
"If we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect Mitt Romney ... they will not have a nuclear weapon," the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican frontrunner said in November.
Earlier this month, in South Carolina, Romney slammed Obama for being too slow to support the Iranian democracy protests in 2009.
"When there were over a million people in the streets of Tehran screaming for freedom, he was silent," Romney said.
Romney's rival Newt Gingrich has said the Iranian regime could be replaced within a year while Rick Santorum has compared Obama to "feckless" president Jimmy Carter, who saw hopes of a second term in 1980 dissolved in an Iranian hostage crisis.
Obama also told the mainly Jewish audience in New York that he had not seen the progress he had hoped for in his efforts to forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
And he also implicitly took aim at another area of Republican criticism that he had weakened US support for Israel.
"We've got the strongest military cooperation that we've ever had between our two nations. That's not my opinion, by the way -- that's the Israeli government's opinion," he said.
More Americans are seeing a significant rift between rich and poor people, with most people saying there is a strong or very strong conflict between those who are wealthy and those who are not.
A
survey released
Wednesday by
Pew Social &
Demographic Trends
finds that 66
percent of Americans
see strong or very
strong conflicts
between rich and
poor people. That’s
a 19 percentage
point increase over
2009.
Another 23 percent said there was conflict, but it wasn’t very strong.
Only 7 percent of respondents said there is no conflict between wealthy and struggling Americans, according to the survey of more than 2,000 Americans conducted in mid-December.
The strife between rich and poor people is now seen as a bigger issue than other social conflicts, including conflict between immigrants and native-born Americans and tension between black and white Americans, according to the Pew study.
Despite the perception that there is a growing conflict, the Pew report said they did not find clear support for things like government measures to address income inequality.
In addition, people’s perceptions of how the rich get rich have not changed much in recent years.