US Lost Jobs for First Time in 4 Years

Payrolls dropped by 63,000; recession fears intensify

(NEWSER) - The US lost 63,000 jobs in February, the second straight month payrolls contracted and the worst drop since 2003, catching economists off guard and fanning fears of recession anew, Bloomberg reports. Economists hoped the economy would add 23,000 jobs after declining a modest 17,000 in January, when the unemployment rate rose to 4.9%. More»

Recession has been especially hard on traditionally male jobs

(NEWSER) - Male unemployment has hit an all-time high, with a whopping 1 of every 5 working-age American men jobless, according to the latest government figures. The economic downturn has been especially brutal on traditionally male-dominated fields like construction and manufacturing, the Huffington Post explains, leading some to label it a “mancession.” The figure includes many people standard unemployment figures don’t track, including those who’ve chosen not to look and those who have given up on job hunting. More»

Employment picture likely to remain grim for years, and predicting winning industries is a challenge

(NEWSER) - The job market is likely to be grim for years to come—economists expect that even if job creation returned to the brisk pace of the ‘90s, unemployment wouldn’t return to 5% until 2017. And for many of the unemployed, the numbers belie the real problem: The positions they're trained for may be gone forever. The real estate and finance industries, for example, will probably never support as many employees as they did before the recession. More»

(NEWSER) - If the downturn has you considering a “recession-proof” job like teaching or medicine, think again, Greg Burns writes in the Chicago Tribune. The recession has affected all sectors, from layoffs and lower enrollment at educational institutions to dwindling state budgets choking civil servants. “It’s a question of degree,” one expert says. “I really don’t believe there is any such thing as recession-proof.” More»

Weak labor market expected to cause longer recession

(NEWSER) - So much for those so-called green shoots of recovery. Yesterday's worse-than-expected unemployment report has far more red flags of warning on the jobs front, writes Moira Herbst in BusinessWeek. Among them: the average work week shrank to 33 hours, the lowest on record; hourly earnings remained flat; long-term unemployment rose to an all-time high; and temp workers, an important harbinger, took a big hit. More»