Washington - The US recession continues to take a heavy toll as the country's unemployment rate climbed to 9.5 per cent and 467,000 jobs were shed in June, the Labour Department said Thursday. The monthly figures were worse than expected, after the US job slide situation had improved dramatically in May. The Labour Department revised downward May's job losses to 322,000 from 345,000.
The unemployment rate climbed from 9.4 per cent in May and stands at its highest level in more than a quarter-century. Economists had predicted only 365,000 jobs would be cut in June, according to a Bloomberg News survey.
US stocks plunged more than 1 per cent within minutes of opening on Wall Street, as the jobs report offered little comfort to investors looking for signs that the economy is stabilizing.
"This is certainly a setback," Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told Bloomberg Television. But she noted the figures were still better than an average of 700,000 jobs lost in the first few months of the year.
The US economy has now lost 6.5 million jobs since a deep recession began in December 2007, the worst 18-month stretch since 1939.
Manufacturing and construction continued to be some of the worst hit industries in the country. Health care remained one of the few growth sectors.
