US Jobless Rate Rises to 5.7%, 4-Year High

...below the all-important 400K line, to 398K

(NEWSER) - Here’s something you don’t see every day: good news from the labor market. New jobless claims fell by 24,000 in the week ending on July 23, to 398,000, the Labor Department announced today. That’s the lowest level of job loss since April, and significantly better than the 415,000 that a Bloomberg survey of economists predicted. It’s especially significant, the Atlantic explains, because anything below the 400,000 line is considered an indicator of “stable job growth.” The Dow, which has fallen for four straight days, rose on the news; it's currently up 76 points. More»

(NEWSER) - Unemployment hit 8.1% in February, its highest level since late 1983, as employers cut 651,000 jobs, the government said today. That’s worse than the 7.9% analysts predicted, thanks to revised numbers from January and December that were much worse than originally reported. December’s revised loss of 681,000 jobs makes it the worst month since October 1949, the Wall Street Journal reports. More»

Did you ever suspect they'd go down? Me either

(AP) - The number of new claims for jobless benefits jumped more than expected last week, as companies continue to cut jobs at a furious pace. The Labor Department reported today that initial claims rose to a seasonally adjusted 589,000, from an upwardly revised figure of 527,000 the previous week. The tally was well above Wall Street economists' expectations of 540,000 new claims. More»

Biggest drop in 34 years

(NEWSER) - November saw 553,000 Americans lose their jobs, according to a Labor Department non-farm payrolls report, the steepest drop in 34 years. The number exceeded even the grimmest predictions in Bloomberg’s survey of 73 analysts. “The labor market capsized in November,” said one economist. “The financial panic has hammered the economy, and we are seeing a very broad-based decline in payrolls.” More»

To be fair, they've already had the worst two-day stretch since 1987

(NEWSER) - The economy lost 240,000 jobs in October, bringing unemployment to 6.5%, its highest rate since 1994. It was the 10th-straight negative month, bringing the year’s losses to 1.2 million. But the staggering report did little to move the needle on Wall Street, as the Dow actually rose 136 points before settling back. The S&P and Nasdaq saw similar modest gains of 1.3% and 1.4% respectively. More»