The U.S. unemployment rate soared to 8.5 percent last month. This was an all time high in the last 25 years. Almost 663,000 jobs were cut down. Workers’ hours were also cut down to the lowest level on record.
The Labor Department also has revised its data for January to show job losses of 741,000 that month, the biggest decline since October 1949. February’s drop in non-farm payrolls was unrevised at 651,000.
The report clearly seems to indicate that the unemployment rates are here to stay and they may not have really peaked.
“The report does not contradict the growing notion that the economy is finding a bottom. Employment will not turn on a dime and certainly there’s no sign of strength, but at least it’s not getting worse and worse and worse,” said Pierre Ellis, senior economist at Decision Economics in New York.