Washington, June 2 (Xinhua-RHC) -- U.S. Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney continued warring over who will better lead the recovery of the U.S. economy, the top agenda in the 2012 presidential campaign.

The U.S. Labor Department reported on Friday that the total non-farm payrolls added merely 69,000 jobs in May, well below the market prediction and much lower than the average monthly gain of 226,000 jobs in the first quarter, with the unemployment rate edging up to 8.2 percent. Some analysts say the grim figures cast a shadow on sitting President Obama’s re-election bid.

In a Friday speech in Golden Valley, Minnesota, Obama spoke of the tough times he inherited more than three years ago. He also defended his efforts in boosting the job market, stressing that almost 4.3 million new jobs have been created over the last 27 months.

Quoted by a White House pool media reporter, Obama said, “…but as we learned in today’s jobs report, we’re still not creating them as fast as we want,” adding the recovery would “take time” and “not be easy.”

On his re-election bid, Obama referred to the mess he inherited from his predecessor from time to time, and blamed the Bush administration for the gloomy economy. He also said Americans deserve leaders who will “do everything possible to strengthen the middle class and move this economy forward.”

Romney, who passed the threshold of 1,144 delegates needed to seal the party’s nomination earlier this week, quickly seized the opportunity calling May’s report “devastating news for American workers and American families” in a statement.

“This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another,” he said, citing examples of slowing GDP growth, plunging consumer confidence, increasing unemployment claims and a dismal jobs report as “harsh indictment” of Obama’s handling of U.S. economy.

He claimed that it is now clear to everyone that Obama’s policies have failed to achieve the goals and that “the Obama economy is crushing America’s middle class.”

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