Obama names a new economic adviser to his cabinet!

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — President Obama on Monday nominated Alan Krueger to run his Council of Economic Advisers, moving to fill an important vacancy on an economic team that has undergone a nearly total makeover.

Krueger, 50, a Princeton University economics professor, would step up to the vacancy created by the departure of Austan Goolsbee.

Goolsbee, a long-time Obama adviser, announced his return to the University of Chicago earlier this summer. (Watch video: Austan Goolsbee’s swan song)

“As one of the country’s leading economists, Alan has been a key voice on a vast array of economic issues for more than two decades,” Obama said in a statement.

The appointment comes at a critical time for the administration. Obama is planning to make a much-anticipated speech next week to propose ways Washington could help the fragile recovery.

“Given the focus of the administration on jobs and unemployment, he’s the ideal choice for the position,” said Morris Kleiner, a labor economist and professor at the University of Minnesota who has collaborated with Krueger.

Last fall, Krueger left the Obama administration, where he had worked as assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy during the financial crisis.

At the Treasury Department, he worked on an effort to spur small business credit and the Build America Bonds program, which made it cheaper for cities and municipalities to issue bonds to kick-start new construction projects.

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