Annual loss biggest since end of World War II. Unemployment rate rises to 7.2%.
The hemorrhaging of American jobs accelerated at a record pace at the end of 2008, bringing the year’s total job losses to 2.6 million or the highest level in more than six decades.
A sobering U.S. Labor Department jobs report Friday showed the economy lost 524,000 jobs in December and 1.9 million in the year’s final four months, after the credit crisis began in September.
The steep annual drop in jobs marked the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945, the year in which World War II ended.
November, in which 584,000 jobs were lost, and December marked the first time in the 70-year history of the report in which the economy lost more than 500,000 jobs in consecutive months.
By comparison, the 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008 nationwide were equal to the number of jobs found in states such as Wisconsin, Missouri or Maryland.
A growing number of workers seeking full-time jobs were able to find only part-time work. Job losses widespread
Job losses were spread across a wide variety of industries. Manufacturing lost 149,000 jobs, the leisure and hospitality industries cut 22,000 jobs, and the mining industry shed 1,000 positions.
Professional and business services jobs, a category seen by some economists as a proxy for overall economic activity, dropped by 113,000. And financial services jobs fell by 14,000.
Government hiring, which has stayed relatively strong throughout the downturn, added another 7,000 jobs in December. Construction employment shrank further by 101,000 jobs, and the rate of construction unemployment soared to 15.3% – by far the highest of any group.
“Today’s jobs report … is conclusive evidence that it is time to put people back to work building America,” said Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.
Call for stimulus
Many economists have said job losses will continue to accelerate without government intervention.
In another sign that more losses will come soon, temporary employment, including workers employed by temp agencies, fell by another 80,600 jobs last month. Employers often cut temporary workers before they begin cutting permanent staff.
The economy has lost more than 2.5 million jobs in the current recession, which began in December 2007, far surpassing the previous two recessions, and just below the 2.7 million jobs lost in the 1981-1982 recession, which had the deepest unemployment in the 70-year history of the report.
source :money.cnn.com
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