White House eyeing range of options for boosting jobs

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is still not planning to pursue a second stimulus package but his advisers are considering a range of programs for creating jobs, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday.

The U.S. Labor Department said on Friday that U.S. employers unexpectedly cut more jobs in September than in August, underscoring the fragility of the economy's recovery from its worst recession in 70 years.

"The economic team is certainly looking at and working on any way that we can create more jobs," Gibbs said at a daily news briefing.

Those include extending unemployment payments and Cobra health insurance benefits for the unemployed and continuing the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, he said.

"We're bumping up against some of the expirations of that, and the president and the team have been working with Congress on that for a while," Gibbs said.

The White House does not consider such measures a second economic stimulus plan, after the unprecedented $787 billion program passed earlier this year.

"These are programs that are designed to help people that have lost their jobs, and I don't think we would consider continuing a program for people that lost their jobs to be something other than just extending the current program," he said.

Obama called the jobs report on Friday a "sobering reminder" that progress toward economic recovery is slow "and that we're going to need to grind out this recovery step by step."

Gibbs said the administration is still focused on implementing the earlier stimulus package, given that the depth of the recession has been "far more dire" than most economists predicted.

"The president understands that and is working to implement the recovery plan in a way that cushions that blow. Obviously, we've talked about looking at different ways to stimulate the economy again," Gibbs said.

(Editing by Jeff Mason and Anthony Boadle)