Eager to show he isn't neglecting the recession, President Barack Obama hosted a jobs summit Thursday, soliciting ideas from scores of business and labor leaders on how to reverse an economic downturn that has sent the unemployment rate to its worst level in a generation. The event was held on the eve of a new government report expected to show that more than 120,000 jobs were lost in November with unemployment still hovering above 10 percent. Having spent weeks developing a new Afghanistan war strategy and pushing a health care bill, Obama wanted to demonstrate that he has not lost sight of the jobs issue. On Friday he will appear in Allentown, Pa., to talk more about his plans for job growth. And on Tuesday he will deliver a speech on the subject at the Brookings Institution in Washington. (Begin optional trim) Not to be outflanked, the Republicans held a dueling jobs conference with their own economic experts. Republicans blamed the grim jobs picture on Obama's policies. They contend the administration's $787 billion stimulus package has failed and warn that passage of the health care overhaul will undermine conditions for economic progress. What's more, they say they were snubbed. Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican minority leader, said he didn't get an invitation to the Obama summit. At a news conference, Boehner said: 'The biggest problem that we heard from our economists with regard to why employers aren't hiring is all the job-killing policies that are being offered by this administration and this Congress and creating an awful lot of uncertainty for American employers.' (End optional trim) After an introductory session, the chief executives, labor chiefs and policy analysts invited to Obama's conference broke up into work groups to trade ideas. At one meeting devoted to road and bridge projects, the president unexpectedly sat at the table in the Secretary of War suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Elbows on the table, hands clasped in front of him, Obama was confronted by Doug Holtz-Eakin, an economic advisor to Obama's Republican opponent in the 2008 campaign, John McCain. Holtz-Eakin contended that infrastructure projects are better suited for long-term economic goals and are not a good use of money meant to give the economy a quick jolt. Obama agreed with parts of the argument. 'The term `shovel-ready' -- let's be honest here -- doesn't always live up to its billing,' he said. Asked about the remarkable degree of infrastructure spending in China, the president conceded that public works spending in that country was 'pretty remarkable.' But Obama, who visited China last month, offered a reason. 'The Chinese don't have this thing called democracy that we have to deal with. So shoveling out a whole lot of money, tearing down whatever is there, conscripting folks to do the work is not as tough.' Speaking to the participants afterward, Obama fielded a question about whether his own ambitious priorities are making matters worse. Apart from health care, Obama wants to impose new financial regulations that will shore up the nation's banks. With complex policies being hashed out on tight deadlines, it is difficult for businesspeople to plan, one participant said. Fred Lampropoulos, president of a medical device company in Utah, said: 'One of the overriding thoughts in our forum was that there's uncertainty that there's such an aggressive legislative agenda that businesspeople don't really know what they ought to do.' Obama said that at the outset of his term, he rejected the idea of a modest legislative agenda. Postponing action on festering problems would leave the country in a weaker position, he said. 'Having said that, my strong hope is, is that we get health care done by the end of this year,' Obama said. 'That eliminates some uncertainty because people will have a sense of what's going to be happening in the health care field.' If financial regulatory reform is done by the end of the year or early next year, he added, banks would have some certainty. 'And that, to the extent that the uncertainty is derived from these major legislative initiatives, I think will be solved in the next few months.' 