By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

Aug. 7. 2009 – The jobless numbers released today show fewer workers being laid off, the unemployment rate slowing and for the first time since April of 2008 a fall in the jobless rate.   All good signs unemployment numbers will not hit 10 percent and that the economy is headed toward recovery. 

The Labor Department said the government numbers show 43,000 fewer jobs lost in May and June than once reported and in July the unemployment rate was forecast to be higher than it actually was.  Those numbers coupled with the pace of job losses slowing delivered the decline in the unemployment rate from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent.    

 President Obama told reporters the economy is moving in the right direction. “This morning, we received additional signs that the worst may be behind us.  Though we lost 247,000 jobs in July, that was nearly 200,000 fewer jobs lost than in June, and far fewer than the nearly 700,000 jobs a month that we were losing at the beginning of the year,” he said.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said these numbers are a good sign. “Today’s job numbers give us a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel and hope that we are beginning to turn our troubled economy around for the first time in many months.”

Economic analysts predicted the worse of the economic downturn was ending and had indicated a slowdown in job loss would be one of the first indicators. 

“The drop in the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent and the ease of job losses by 196,000 make it clear that the new economic policies implemented by President Obama and the Democratic-led Congress are working,” Cummings said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid quickly took to the House floor following the job numbers release to remind Americans that this economy was “inherited” from the previous administration and that Dems have been working to get it back on track.

“The President and Congress acted swiftly and passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has stopped the bleeding and avoided an economic catastrophe,” Reid said.  “This is welcome news and further proof that the economic recovery plan we enacted is producing positive results,” Reid declared.

The Republican National Committee disagrees and put out a statement saying ,“In the month of July alone 247,000 Americans lost their jobs, which means more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the president took office. “  They made no mention of the millions of jobs lost during the Bush administration.

Do you have a job, are you looking for one or have you lost one in the last two months?