US Loses 524K Jobs; Unemployment Hits 7.2%

(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»

(NEWSER) - Unemployment has hit a 25-year high, but analysts say it will worsen as job cuts force consumers to cut back, triggering yet more payroll reductions, Bloomberg reports. Manufacturers, service providers, and even the US Postal Service are planning to lay off workers in the face of declining consumer demand. “We expect labor-market conditions to remain appalling for many months to come,” said one US economist. More»

Some 159,000 positions disappear

(AP) - Employers slashed payrolls by 159,000 in September, the most in more than 5 years and a worrisome sign that the economy is hurtling toward a deep recession. Today's snapshot also showed the nation's unemployment rate held steady at 6.1% as hundreds of thousands of people streamed out of the work force. It marked the 9th straight month that the economy has lost jobs. More»

End-of-March increase way over expectations

(NEWSER) - New unemployment claims increased to a two-year high last week, the Wall Street Journal reports. A total of 407,000 Americans filed for jobless benefits, an increase of 38,000 over the previous week and the most since 2005. The surge in claims far surpassed the outlook of economists in a Dow Jones Newswire survey; they predicted an increase of 4,000. More»

...Unless you were a millionaire

(NEWSER) - The Social Security Administration quietly released payroll data for 2010 yesterday, and they were “in a word, awful,” writes David Cay Johnston at Reuters —assuming you’re not a millionaire, that is. The number of people making at least $1 million rose by 20%, jumping from 78,000 to almost 94,000. But for everyone else, there were fewer jobs and they paid less. The median paycheck fell 1.2% to $26,364, or $507 a week, its lowest level, adjusting for inflation, since 1999. More»