WASHINGTON, June 2: US President Barack Obama stepped up pressure on Congress Saturday, urging lawmakers to pass a string of bills designed to help grow the economy and create more jobs — after a new uptick in the nation's unemployment rate.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, the president noted that the US economy, while recovering, was still facing “some serious headwinds.”

“Gas prices are starting to come down again, but when they spiked over the last few months, it hit people's wallets pretty hard,” Obama said.

“The crisis in Europe's economy has cast a shadow on our own. And all of this makes it even more challenging to fully recover and lay the foundation for an economy that's built to last.”

The comments came as the US unemployment rate rose for the first time in almost a year, spelling more trouble for Obama's reelection.

The jobless rate ticked up to 8.2 per cent, against expectations that it would hold steady at April's 8.1 per cent. It was the first rise since June 2011, when it climbed to 9.1 per cent from 9.0 per cent.

The data came just five months ahead of the November 6 presidential election amid a campaign dominated by concerns about the slow, fragile recovery.

The world's largest economy slowed from an annual growth rate of 3.0 per cent in the final quarter of 2011 to a 1.9 per cent pace in the first quarter, too weak a pace to dent unemployment.

Jeffrey Rosen at Briefing.com said the report confirmed that the labor market has reversed direction after showing “so much promise” from November through March.

Layoffs have started to increase recently, he noted. “That means that businesses are not in a wait-and-see mode but are actively looking to pare down costs amid the possibility of an economic slowdown.”—AFP