The council of economists, executives and labor leaders created to advise President Barack Obama on spurring job creation will officially cease to exist this week, the White House announced Thursday.

The Council on Jobs and Competitiveness was created in January 2011 by executive order, and its charter mandated that it would expire after two years. A White House official said Thursday that the council's charter would not be renewed.

While the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.1 percent in January 2011 to 7.8 percent last month, more than 12 million Americans remain out of work, a figure that both Democrats and Republican say is too high.

The news also comes the day after a Commerce Department report showed the U.S. economy contracting for the first time in more than three years. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic growth, contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent from October to December, the report said. It was the first quarterly contraction since the second quarter of 2009, amid the so-called "great recession."

The White House official said Thursday the plan had always been to disband the jobs council after two years, just as the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board broke up after its two-year charter expired in 2011.

According to the White House website, the last time the jobs council met was over a year ago, on Jan. 17, 2012. The infrequency of the meetings became fodder for Obama's rival on the presidential campaign trail.

"In the last six months, he has held 100 fundraisers," GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said in July. "And guess how many meetings he's had with his jobs council? None. Zero. Zero, in the last six months. So it makes it very clear where his priorities are."

Romney and other Republicans criticized the council as merely a tactic to appear focused on job creation, rather than actual commitment to any ideas coming from the private sector. On Thursday, Republicans continued those complaints as the White House moved to end the panel.

"To understand the abysmal nature of our economic recovery, look no further than the president's disinterest in learning lessons from actual job creators," Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, wrote in a statement. "Whether ignoring the group or rejecting its recommendations, the president treated his Jobs Council as more of a nuisance than a vehicle to spur job creation."

The White House official said the council's recommendations "were considered in the context of the President's broader economic policy and job creation agenda, and while we didn't agree with every one of their ideas, most of their recommendations were acted on by the administration."