WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that the United States must step up job creation efforts, but contended that the world's largest economy was not going through a "jobless recovery."

In an interview with NBC television, Obama said the United States has experienced eight consecutive months of private sector job growth, "we're actually seeing more job growth so far in this recovery than we did in the last recovery that we had back in 2001. "

U.S. unemployment rate edged up to 9.6 percent in August. Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 54,000 last month, primarily caused by a decrease of 114,000 in the number of temporary workers hired for the decennial census. Private-sector payroll employment rose by 67,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

"The problem is we just lost so many jobs because of the crisis that we've got a much bigger hole to fill," he said, adding that the nation needs to accelerate job creation efforts.

Nearly 8.5 million jobs have been lost since the start of the recession in December 2007, and economists don't expect those losses to be recovered any time soon considering the severity of the recession and the moderate recovery pace.