467K Jobs Cut in June; Jobless Rate at 26-Year High
Neil Irwin - Washington Post Staff Writer
Employers kept slashing jobs at a furious pace in June as the unemployment rate edged ever closer to double-digit levels, undermining signs of progress in the economy, and making clear that the job market remains in terrible shape.
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The number of jobs on employers' payrolls fell by 467,000, the Labor Department said. That is many more jobs than were shed in May and far worse than the 350,000 job losses that economists were forecasting.
Job losses peaked in January and had declined every month until June. The steep losses show that even as there are signs that total economic activity may level off or begin growing later this year, the nation's employers are still pulling back.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, which is based on a separate survey of households, rose to 9.5 percent, from 9.4 percent. While it is now rising at a more measured pace than in the recent past, many economists continue to expect that the rate will surpass 10 percent by fall.
The nation now has 14.7 million people who are looking for a job but can't find one, up 7.2 million since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. A broader measure of unemployment, which also includes people who are working part-time but want a full-time job and who have given up looking for a job out of frustration, also rose, to 16.5 percent from 16.4 percent.
The higher-than-expected job losses came about in part because of an unexpected drop in the number of government jobs; 52,000 of them were shed in June.
But the job losses occurred almost across the board, with major job cuts in manufacturing (136,000 jobs) and professional and business services employers (116,000 jobs). The construction sector continued cutting jobs rapidly (79,000 ), but that is less rapid than most of the last year.
The only bright spot was in education and health care, which gained 34,000 jobs.
Wages, meanwhile, were little changed, with average weekly pay for non-managerial workers falling to $609.37, from $609.51. With many people losing their jobs, and those who remain at work making less money, American consumers will be hard-pressed to increase their spending later in the year, despite higher confidence and rising wealth through the stock market.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070200354.html