WASHINGTON, D.C.—At its annual Labor Day briefing today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s top economic and labor policy leaders outlined the major economic and workplace issues facing businesses and offered Congress and the administration ideas to immediately spur job creation.

“The economic data tells the story: The current policies coming out of Washington are not creating economic growth,” said the Chamber’s Chief Economist Dr. Martin Regalia. “Both the administration and Congress need to come together to remove the barriers to job creation and open up new markets.”

Next week the Chamber will send a jobs plan to the President and Congress outlining specific, practical steps we can take to help quickly create new jobs. The letter will note that approving the pending trade agreements will not only save 380,000 jobs, but they will create thousands of new ones in America. Investing in infrastructure will rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges and put idle construction workers back to work. Increasing domestic energy will create jobs, reduce our reliance on foreign oil, and generate badly needed federal revenue. Perhaps more than anything, we need to remove the regulatory barriers that are weighing down our economy.

“Times are tough again this Labor Day, but employers continue doing their best to support America’s workers,” said Randy Johnson, the Chamber’s senior vice president of Labor, Immigration, and Employee Benefits. He pointed out that employers are spending close to $8 trillion dollars on total compensation and $1.5 trillion on employee benefits, while covering 170 million Americans with health insurance and more than 100 million in pension plans. Surveys continue to show high levels of satisfaction by workers with their employment.

“Businesses want to expand and hire more workers, but they continue to be held back by a rising mountain of burdensome regulations coming out of Washington,” Johnson said. “Still, we are in difficult economic times, and it is distressing that this administration appears bent on issuing numerous regulations in the employment field which will do nothing to promote job growth—indeed will impede job growth—by imposing continued uncertainty and increased costs on employers. That many of these regulatory proposals are clearly motivated by a political agenda rewarding political allies does not hide this basic fact.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.