United States: Unemployment jumps

The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5% in March as the economy shed another 663,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With the job loss reported for March, and upward revisions of 84,000 for the prior two months, the economy has lost an average of 684,000 jobs per month since November 2008.

The job losses continue to be heavily concentrated in construction and manufacturing, which lost 126,000 and 161,000 jobs in March, respectively

While the most disadvantaged groups are feeling the effects of the downturn the hardest — the unemployment rate for African Americans is now 13.3%, which is also the rate for people without high school degrees — this recession is hitting everyone.

The unemployment rate for workers with college degrees rose by 0.2% points to 4.3% in March. While this rate is still just half of the overall average, it is double the 2.1% unemployment rate faced by college graduates just a year ago.

The number of people involuntarily working part-time rose by another 400,000. Since the beginning of the downturn, this number has risen by 5.4 million workers.

[Abridged from <http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine>. Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy research.]

From GLW issue 790