Jobless Claims Hit 6-Year High

(NEWSER) - The unemployment rate now stands at a 25-year high of 8.5%, but the nation's CEOs say it's only going to get worse. Nearly three-quarters of the leaders of the nation's biggest companies expect to lay off more workers in the next 6 months, USA Today reports. That percentage—71%—is up 11 points from November and is the highest since the survey of the Business Roundtable began in 2002. 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»

(NEWSER) - Nonfarm payrolls plunged 598,000 in January, the Labor Department announced today, bringing the total job losses to 3.6 million since the recession began in December 2007. The drop was significantly worse than analysts anticipated, and the worst since December 1974, the Wall Street Journal reports. The jobless rate jumped to 7.6% for the month, a 16-year high. Included in the report were revisions showing that the US lost about 3 million jobs last year, up from the 2.6 million previously estimated. 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»