Boost for Obama as US unemployment falls again and job growth quickens December was the sixth consecutive month that the US economy had added more than 100,000 jobs Link to this video Barack Obama received a major electoral boost after a new set of jobless figures showed unemployment in the US fell to a three-year low in December. The economy is expected to be the key issue of the presidential election later this year. According to the US Labour Department's monthly survey of employers, private companies added 212,000 jobs in December, while the public sector - federal, state and local governments - shrank by 12,000. This was the sixth consecutive month that the US economy has added more than 100,000 jobs. The unemployment numbers have now fallen for four straight months, and suggest that the economy could be gaining momentum just as the president's re-election effort gets into gear. "Today's employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," said Alan Krueger, chairman of the council of economic advisers at the White House. It is critical that we continue the economic policies that are helping us to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the recession that began at the end of 2007. Polls show that jobs and the economy are the number one election issue with voters, with foreign policy and health care reform well down the list. Campaigning in South Carolina on Friday, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney did not specifically refer to the drop, but claimed Obama had not delivered on his promise to turn the economy around. "He has failed to put American back to work," Romney said. In his stump speech, a rehearsal for the general election, Romney emphasised that unemployment is higher than when Obama took over from George Bush in 2009. He contrasted this with Obama's promises on the campaign trail in 2008 to turn the economy around. No US president since Franklin Roosevelt has won an election with unemployment as high as it currently is. Romney, along with the other Republican candidates, sees the way out of America's recession as huge cuts in the federal budget, accompanied by cuts in corporation tax to help business. "Remember, it was early in his administration that [Obama] said: 'Look, if you let me borrow $787bn, I will be able to keep unemployment from going above 8%'," Romney said. Well, it went passed 8%, and it hasn't been back since, three years later. While true that job growth has yet to make up for the ground lost during the recession - 13.1 million Americans remain unemployed - December marks the 15th consecutive month that the economy has added jobs. Marcus Bullus, trading director at MB Capital, said: "That's one hell of a number. Such an impressive fall in both the number of jobless Americans and the unemployment rate will cheer everyone bar Republican spin doctors. Bullus added that the strong US numbers would add to a sense of optimism, but cautioned that problems in the Eurozone would continue to dampen the global economy during 2012. The rosier outlook for US jobs beat analysts' expectations, and is echoed by other, non-governmental estimates. According to the latest monthly poll by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing and consultancy firm Macroeconomic Advisers the US added 325,000 private-sector jobs in December. The four-week average of new jobless claims has also fallen to its lowest level since before the financial crisis hit in late 2008. The number of layoff announcements in December fell to to 41,785, the lowest monthly total since June, according to the latest report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. However, Challenger's tally of job cuts for the whole of 2011 was 606,082, 14% higher than the 529,973 job cuts announced in 2010.