04/04/09
WASHINGTON The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since late 1983, as a wide swath of employers eliminated 663,000 jobs. It's fresh evidence of the toll the recession has inflicted on America's workers, and economists say there's no relief in sight. If part-time and discouraged workers are factored in, the unemployment rate would have been 15.6 percent in March, the highest on records dating to 1994, according to Labor Department data released Friday. The average work week in March dropped to 33.2 hours, a record low. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 5.1 million jobs, with almost two-thirds of the losses occurring in the last five months. "It's an ugly report, and April is going to be equally as bad," predicted Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. The deterioration in the jobs market and a worse-than-expected reading of the strength of the services sector in March come despite a few hopeful signs recently that the recession now matching the longest since World War II could be easing.
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