WASHINGTON – As bad as 2008 was in terms of recession-induced job losses, the new year seems to be even worse.
Unemployment rose to 7.6% in January, as businesses cut 598,000 non-farm jobs, the Department of Labor reported today.
The economy has lost 3.6 million jobs since the current recession started in December 2007, about half of those losses occurred in the past three months. The total number of jobs declined during each of the last 13 months.
The number of persons unemployed in January was 11.6 million, up from 11.1 million in December, when the unemployment rate was 7.2%.
During the past year, the number of unemployed has increased by 4.1 million and the unemployment rate has grown by 2.7%.
The department said the unemployment would have been even higher if it had included the 2.1 million people who have given up seeking work, up from 1.9 million in December.
Wage growth also remained sluggish, Average hourly earnings grew 5 cents, compared with 7 cents in December. Over the last 12 months, average hourly earnings increased 3.9% and average weekly earnings rose 2.7%.
As in December, employment increased in government and health care while it decreased in manufacturing, construction, and professional and business services.
There were 207,000 manufacturing jobs lost last month, the largest monthly decline since October 1982.
The number of people who worked part time out of necessity -because they could not find full-time work– was 7.8 million, representing a 3.1 million increase in the last 12 months.
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