Sec. Hilda Solis argued the economy is "steadily healing," responding to the disappointing August jobs report.
"I see a jobs report that tells me we are steadily healing because we are still adding jobs," Solis said, in an interview with Bloomberg News. "We still have a strong area in manufacturing where 500,000 jobs have been created."
"Manufacturing declined, though," Bloomberg anchor Betty Liu interrupted.
"Just in one month," Solis replied. "Let's look at the 30-month period."
Solis is tasked with responding to a disappointing jobs report for the White House.
While analysts expected the economy to add 130,000 jobs in August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported non-farm payrolls increased only by 96,000. June and July's job numbers were revised downwards by 41,000 jobs.
Although the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent, more than 380,000 people left the work force, leaving labor force participation at the lowest national rate since 1981. If the labor force participation rate were unchanged from last month, the unemployment rate would have risen to 8.4 percent, according to Jim Pethokoukis.