Since December 2007, 5.1 million jobs have been lost and the unemployment rate has risen from 8.1 percent in February 2009 to 8.5 percent in March of 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS reports the March job losses as widespread across the major industry sectors with half of the increase in both the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate occurring in the last 4 months.
Household survey data compiled by the BLS indicates that the number of unemployed persons increased by 694,000 to 13.2 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 3.4 percentage points over the last 12 months.
To view the BLS employment situation brief visit www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf.
