This morning's jobs report didn't inspire a lot of praise from the Alliance for American Manufacturing's (AAM) Executive Director, Scott Paul.  While the U.S. gained 115,000 jobs overall, including 16,000 in manufacturing, Paul was concerned that any recent manufacturing resurgence may be tailing off.  The 16,000 new industrial jobs were "well below the trend of the past two years," Paul said, which leaves a "lot that Congress and the Administration should be doing to boost job creation in America."

In contrast, though, the White House viewed the added manufacturing jobs as a positive development:

Manufacturing continues to be a bright spot and added 16,000 jobs in April.  After losing millions of good manufacturing jobs in the years before and during the recession, the economy has added 489,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2010.  To continue the revival in manufacturing jobs and output, the President has proposed tax incentives for manufacturers, enhanced training for the workforce, and measures to create manufacturing hubs and encourage the growing trend of insourcing.

Predictably, the president's campaign opponent, Mitt Romney, called it a "terrible and very disappointing report":

"Well, we should be seeing numbers in the 500,000 jobs created per month. This is way, way, way off from what should happen in a normal recovery. The reason that you’re seeing the unemployment rate go down is because you have more people dropping out of the workforce than you have getting jobs. It’s a terrible and very disappointing report this morning. Clearly the American people are wondering why this recovery isn’t happening faster, why it’s taking years and years for the recovery to occur and we seem to be slowing down, not speeding up. This is not progress; this is very, very disappointing and a lot of American people are having very hard times and this is not good news this morning.”

It is interesting that Romney suggested the creation of 500,000 new jobs in one month but didn't address the manufacturing sector's small job growth.  Maximizing job creation will only come when the U.S. starts emphasizing the value-added benefits of its industrial sector.