Source: Washington Times
In a worse-than-expected showing, employers shed 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate ticked up another tenth of a percentage point to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, the Labor Department reported Thursday.Mainstream economic forecasts had projected job losses of about 350,000 -- about the same as May's initial numbers -- so the June employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics dampened hopes that the U.S. economy was getting back on its feet. June broke a four-month streak of consecutively better employment reports.
''Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services and construction,'' the bureau said Thursday in its monthly Employment Situation Summary.
Florida unemployment figures for June will be released July 17. In May, Florida's unemployment rate was 10.2 percent, and it's expected to stay at or above that level over the next few months.
Wall Street didn't like the surprise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 135 points within the first 10 minutes of trading Thursday and continued, ending the day down 223 points, or 2.6 percent to close at 8,280.74.
The numbers were a setback to the Obama administration, which is hoping that its stimulus spending will spark life into the sluggish economy.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said the administration underestimated the severity of the slumping economy when pushing Congress this winter to pass the $787 billion economic stimulus package, but added that it's too early to consider a second massive spending measure to jump-start the economy.
"We misread how bad the economy was," Mr. Biden said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having distributed the bulk of the money."
Mr. Biden said the package will take some time to take effect fully because contracts for many of its projects, such as highway construction and repair, only recently have been signed. He promised that the program will create more jobs within the next 100 days.
The former senator from Delaware also pushed back at Republican criticism that much of the program money has been wasted on frivolous spending projects with little economic benefit.
There were predictions that "this was going to be wasteful and all these terrible projects were going to be out there, and we're wasting money. Well, that dog hasn't barked yet," he said.
