Jobless Rate Jumps to 8.1%

WASHINGTON, DC - The nation's unemployment rate topped 8 percent last month and the economy shed 651,000 jobs, according to government data released this morning, further evidence of the deepening recession that has devastated the stock market and home prices and triggered the largest government recovery effort since the Great Depression.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the jobless rate rose from 7.6 percent in January to 8.1 percent in February, the highest rate in more than 25 years. An estimated 12.5 million Americans were unemployed in February, the data show, an increase of 851,000 since January.

The government also revised sharply upward the number of jobs the economy lost in December and January to show a total of nearly 2 million jobs disappearing in the last three months. December saw the most job losses, according to the revised figures, with 681,000, significantly more than the previous estimate of 524,000. The number of jobs lost in January rose to 655,000, up from a prior estimate of 598,000.

An additional 651,000 jobs disappeared last month, the government said, illustrating the profound challenges of launching an economic recovery as employers continue to slash payrolls in a desperate effort to control costs.

Each of the last three months now shows more jobs lost than in any single month since October 1949, when the country was just pulling out of a painful recession, the government data shows. Economists say direct comparisons are difficult, however, because the labor force has grown significantly since the post-World War II period.

The Obama administration has moved to stifle the job losses, primarily by approving a fiscal stimulus plan designed to plow money back into the economy. But the allocation of the money is just beginning, and the full effect of the spending likely will not be seen for some time. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters yesterday that Obama will address the jobs figures today when he visits a group of newly trained police recruits in Columbus, Ohio.

The stock market fell sharply yesterday as investors braced for the jobs report, and Asian markets were down overnight. But U.S. futures were up this morning, suggesting that investors may have expected even worse results, or might believe the market has finally hit bottom.

Analysts say the pace of job cuts is likely to remain brisk for at least a few more months, because the demand for goods and services seems likely to remain very low as more consumers find themselves out of work. According to newly released data, the nation's productivity, a measure of goods and services produced per hour, fell at the end of last year. That suggests that demand for goods has fallen even faster than employers have been shedding jobs.

Those who have lost their jobs are not eager to open their wallets, analysts while many of those who remain employed are cutting back because of fears about job security.

The new jobless numbers show that blacks and Hispanics are unemployed at higher rates than the national average, with 13.5 percent of blacks and 10.9 percent of Hispanics looking for work in February. The unemployment rate for whites was 7.3 percent.