Oct. 31--A top White House economic adviser said Friday that the federal government's recovery efforts may have saved or created a million jobs nationwide, but until there is sustained job growth, "there's no major turnaround to brag on."

Speaking by phone yesterday to The Blade, Jared Bernstein, chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, had no immediate answers to the troubles facing U.S. manufacturers, including the auto industry.

"When it comes to every economic challenge we face, there's not one single bullet we're shooting at it," he said.

Given the importance of the Toledo area's automotive and manufacturing base, Mr. Bernstein said the Obama Administration demonstrated it would do what is necessary to protect key jobs by the multibillion-dollar bailouts of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

But he also said that manufacturers need to recognize the markets where they can be successful in a global economy.

"The idea that there are manufacturers out there that get it, that understand that in order to be competitive in the global economy, they need to move into sectors where we can have an edge, where our skilled work force and high productivity gives us an edge," Mr. Bernstein said.

Still, he said, "when it comes to every economic challenge we face, there's not one single bullet we're shooting at it."

The economy, he said, is not "working to our satisfaction or more importantly to the satisfaction of working families across the nation and in particularly hard-hit states.

"Until we have robust monthly job growth, there's no major turnaround to brag on," he said.

The jobless rate last month in Ohio was 10.1 percent, in Toledo it was 12.1 percent, and for Lucas County the rate was 11.3 percent. Many of the unemployed come from downsizing in the automotive and manufacturing industries. The national jobless rate was 9.8 percent.

Further signs of the troubled economic times in metro Toledo are evidenced this year by the hundreds of home foreclosures and by the number of bankruptcies which are on pace to make it one of the top five highest filing years ever.

Mr. Bernstein spoke the day after the Commerce Department said the nation's gross domestic product rose at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the latest quarter, evidence he said that the economy had "pulled back from the abyss quite solidly" and a mark that the country was beginning to emerge from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration said yesterday that its stimulus plan had created or saved more than 640,000 jobs.