Statement by the President in Response to a Report on the Nation's Employment Record.

SECRETARY of Labor Wirtz today reported to me on a remarkable record of achievement in reducing unemployment in the Nation's major labor areas.

At the recession low point of spring of 1961, 101 of 150 population centers surveyed regularly by the Department of Labor were classified as areas of substantial unemployment.

By summer of this year, that number had been cut to 19, an 81 percent reduction.

In many of the 82 areas which have left the substantial unemployment list, the improvement in the job situation has been truly dramatic. In a little over 4 years, Birmingham's unemployment rate declined from 12.9 percent to 3.5 percent, South Bend's 12.9 to 3.5, Detroit's 15.2 to 4.6, Johnstown, Pennsylvania's 20.6 to 4.0, Philadelphia's 8.1 to 4.8, and Pittsburgh's 12.7 to 3.1 Many other labor areas have had similar experiences.

These figures reflect at the community level--where it is most meaningful--the fruits of the 6.4 million new jobs the Nation created between summer of 1961 and summer of 1965. They also reflect our national reduction in unemployment by 1.6 million during the same period.

The overall record provides satisfying and encouraging evidence of the job-creating power of a free economy assisted by positive governmental actions and programs at Federal, State, and local levels. It clearly demonstrates that unemployment is not something we have to learn to live with, and it points the way to the development of a truly full employment economy in our society.

That task still remains an imposing one. Despite our steady improvement in recent years, 3.3 million Americans were looking for jobs in August and couldn't find them. Many of these come from the ranks of our hard-core unemployed--the school dropout, the poorly educated adult worker, the displaced farmworker, the low-skilled worker, and others. Many of these Americans need and will get special assistance through specially designed programs such as the Manpower Act and the Economic Opportunity Act.

Whatever is required must be done. With all of its worldwide commitments to the defense of freedom and to the pursuit of peace, America simply cannot afford the waste of a man's potential not fully developed or the economic loss that that waste brings about.