(For more on the campaign, see ELECT.)
June 2 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama's re-election prospects suffered a blow yesterday as a government report showed hiring slowed last month, reinforcing Republican Mitt Romney's main line of attack against the incumbent.
Jobs in the U.S. grew by 69,000 in May, the fewest in a year and less than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of private economists. The unemployment rate increased to 8.2 percent, the first rise since last June.
The jobs report "keeps the focus on the president's performance and on the Obama record," said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report in Washington. "It simply makes it harder for the president to say it's not about me and it's about a choice between two men. It's much easier for Romney to say, 'Now, wait a minute, is he doing a good job?'"
The slowdown in job growth follows April figures that also came in below forecast and were revised down further yesterday, to a 77,000 gain. The Labor Department's monthly employment report comes on top of other signs of a weakening economy, the overriding concern of voters leading up to the November election.
Obama, speaking at a fundraiser in Minneapolis yesterday, suggested the slowdown in U.S. job growth was primarily due to European governments' inadequate response to the continent's debt crisis, saying "our biggest challenge is not here in the United States but the economy overseas."
Europe's Crisis
"Europe is having a significant crisis in part because they haven't taken as many of the decisive steps as were needed to deal with the challenge and that's weakening Asia and that means it's harder for our exports," Obama said.
Government reports yesterday showed manufacturing output shrank in Europe and slowed in China, the world's second-largest economy.
Republicans immediately blamed Obama's policies for the stalling labor market. Romney called the jobs numbers "very bad news for middle-class families in America" and a "harsh indictment" of Obama's policies.
"This crisis has been going on for 40 months," Romney said in an interview on CNBC. "The job of the president is to get America back to work."
Romney said, if elected in November, he would "focus all my energy" on such an effort. "This president has not." He said Obama "is always quick to find someone to blame" for the struggling economy.
Refusing to Cooperate
House Speaker John Boehner faulted Democrats and Obama for what he was their refusal to work with Republicans to pass legislation to promote job growth.
"If they had taken our advice and worked with us, the economy would be better," the Ohio Republican told reporters.
While Obama and White House officials sought to put the numbers in the best light by citing continued expansion in hiring over the past 27 months, some allies were more direct.
There is "absolutely nothing good to be said" about the employment report, Steven Rattner, who headed Obama's automobile task force, said on Twitter.
Reports released earlier in the week showed the U.S. economy grew less than initially estimated during the year's first quarter, and business activity in May expanded at the slowest pace in more than two years. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose to a one-month high in the week ended May 26.
Stocks Slide
U.S. stocks in May suffered their worst drop since September amid the slowdown in economic growth and signs the European debt crisis is worsening. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 6.3 percent during the month.
Yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note tumbled to record lows for a third day after the Labor Department report. The S&P declined 2.5 percent to 1,277.79 yesterday, its biggest one-day retreat since November. The Dow Jones Industrial Average wiped out its gain for the year.
