Unemployment Rate Jumps to 8.5%
The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 8.5% in March from 8.1% in February, making it the highest level in 25 years, the Labor Department said Friday.
Payrolls plunged by 663,000, the fourth straight time jobs have plunged by more than 600,000, Labor said.
Trucking job losses in March were 15,000, less than the previous two months, Labor said, and the department also revised downward its figures for the numbers of trucking jobs lost in January and February.
January’s trucking job losses were 17,500 — compared with an originally reported 24,900 — while trucking lost 12,900 jobs in February, down substantially from the 33,400 originally reported.
The last time the unemployment rate was 8.5% was in November 1983, following the 1981-82 recession, Bloomberg reported.
The total U.S. job losses since the current recession began at the end of 2007 have reached 5.1 million, the biggest such decline since World War II.
Economists had predicted payrolls would drop by 660,000, while the rate was within estimates, Bloomberg reported.
Factory payrolls plunged by 161,000 after falling by 169,000 in February, while service industry jobs fell by 358,000, following a 366,000 decline in February, Labor said.
