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| US unemployment rate at 25-year high | ||
| 2009-03-06 | ||
THE US unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.1 per cent last month as employers buckling under the strain of a severe recession axed 651,000 jobs, government data showed today.
"The economy is in a tailspin. Businesses are shedding workers at breakneck pace and there's no reason to expect that to change," said Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research in New York. "A million job losses a month have moved from possible to probable." US stocks opened higher amid relief that the drop in payrolls was not as bad as some in the market had expected, but surrendered gains on the back of a sell-off of big-cap technology shares. Treasury debt prices rose. "The 'whisper' numbers were calling for the change in non-farm payrolls to come in as low as minus 800,000," said Kevin Giddis, head of fixed-income trading at Morgan Keegan in Memphis, Tennessee. "Markets, being forward-looking, will turn before the broader economy, and the economy itself will improve before we begin seeing signs of stability in employment patterns." The Labor Department said the unemployment rate in February was the highest level since December 1983, and it was above market forecasts for a rise to 7.9 from January's 7.6 per cent. January's job cuts were revised to show a steep decline of 655,000, while December's payroll losses were adjusted to 681,000, the deepest since October 1949. Job losses in February were broad based, with only government, education and health services adding jobs. "Since the recession, the rise in unemployment has been concentrated among people who lost jobs, as opposed to job leavers or people joining the labour force," said Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall. The Obama Administration, which is rolling out a $US787 billion stimulus package to try and break the economy's alarming downward spiral said February's jobs statistics were more evidence of the depth of the recession.
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| Posted by:tipper |