Unemployment Rate USA 2014: 3 Million Jobs Created As Unemployment Drops

Nearly 3 million jobs were created in the U.S. in 2014, the best since 1999, according to the U.S. Labor Department. For December, there were 252,000 new jobs created with unemployment rate falling to 5.6 percent, said Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.

"December was the 58th consecutive month of private sector job growth, to the tune of 11.2 million jobs. Average unemployment for 2014 was down 1.2 percentage points from 2013, the largest decrease since 1984," he said in a statement.

Perez said this is the longest streak of private sector job growth.

According to the Labor Department, in 2014, there were 732,000 jobs created in the professional and business services; 482,000 in education and health services; 290,000 jobs in construction and 186,000 jobs in manufacturing.

The year before President Barack Obama took office, he said, the U.S. lost nearly 4.5 jobs.

"Now: we've had 11 consecutive months with employment growth above 200,000. The vast majority of jobs created during the recovery have been full-time jobs," he said.

He added, "The resolve and resilience of the American people, plus the steady hand of President Obama, pulled us out of the Great Recession and have put the economy on a sure path. There's still more to do, and the President is determined to make the fourth quarter of his term the most productive yet."

The President recently announced his plan to make community college free for two years for responsible students.

"Students who attend at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA while in college, and make steady progress toward completing their program will have their tuition eliminated," according to the White House.

Perez said unemployment rate is now at 5.6 percent and it "has gone down in the past year because people got jobs."

He added that today, there are only two job seekers for every open job from 7 job seekers in 2009.

"Hiring is at levels we haven't seen since before the Great Recession," he said.

Among the positive outlooks he mentioned were that the American automobile industry is back and consumer confidence is at a seven-year high.

"There is plenty of unfinished business in this recovery. We need to do more to achieve meaningful wage growth, because too many middle-class families are still working harder and falling further behind. We need to do more to ensure that the economy works for everyone, to create broadly-shared prosperity," he said.