WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy needs faster employment growth to fill a huge jobs deficit, but was making progress despite a weaker payrolls figure in April, a senior White House economic advisor said on Friday.
"We see a picture of the economy healing," Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told CNBC.
"Given the problems that the economy has had over the past decade, we need faster growth; we have a very large jobs deficit, we are making progress. We need to do the things to continue to build on that progress."
Employers added 115,000 new jobs to payrolls in April after hiring 154,000 workers in March. While the unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent, it was largely the result of people giving up the search for work and leaving the workforce.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by James Dalgleish)