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2009-07-03 07:56:20
The number of jobs lost in the US last month came in at 467,000, which was much
more than had been expected.
The jobless rate rose to 9.5% in June, from 9.4% in May, as the US economy
continued to struggle.
Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of jobless people
has risen by 7.2 million, the Department of Labor said.
The unemployment rate was slightly lower than had been expected, but was still
the highest since August 1983.
The number of people losing their jobs can be higher than expected at the same
time as the jobless rate is lower than expected, because they are measured in
different ways.
The former is a measure of how many people are working, while the latter shows
the number of people looking for work.
Not everybody who has lost a job will be looking for another one.
President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about the high level of
unemployment and said more needed to be done to create jobs.
"We have successfully stabilised the financial markets," and "started to see
some stabilization on housing," he told the Associated Press.
"But what we are still seeing is too many jobs lost," he added.
'Terrible' market
The non-farm payrolls number would usually be released on a Friday, but has
been announced a day early because US markets will be closed on Friday.
The latest set of figures also included revisions to data for the two previous
months, with the number of jobs lost in April rising 15,000 to 519,000 and the
number lost in May falling 23,000 to 322,000.
Average hourly earnings were unchanged at $18.53 ( 11.33).
A total of 14.7 million people were unemployed in June, the figures showed.
The job losses come despite recent signs of optimism from surveys.
"The job market is terrible. It's as bad as we've seen in our lifetime," said
Keith Hembre, chief economist at FAF Advisors in Minneapolis.
"The light at the end of tunnel is that we see some stability in domestic
demand and some demand overseas."
'Longer process'
In its separate weekly jobs report, the Department of Labor said that the
number of newly laid-off workers applying for employment benefits last week
fell to 614,000, while the number of people continuing to claim benefits
unexpectedly fell to 6.7 million.
The average working week for production and non-supervisory workers fell 0.1
hour to 33.0 hours, which was the lowest since records began in 1964,
suggesting that more people are working part-time.
The average working week for manufacturers rose 0.1 hour to 39.5 hours.
"I don't think it means that the story that the economy is bottoming out is
wrong, I still think that is the right story," said Nigel Gault, chief US
economist at IHS Global Insight.
"But it's evident that it's going to be a much longer process to bottom out in
the labour market than it is to bottom out in the auto market or industrial
production or GDP."