Jobless rate at 9.7 percent; 216k jobs lost in August

WASHINGTON (AP) — The unemployment rate jumped almost half a point to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since 1983, reflecting a poor job market that will make it hard for the economy to begin a sustained recovery.

While the jobless rate rose more than expected, the economy shed a net total of 216,000 jobs, less than July’s revised 276,000 and the fewest monthly losses in a year, according to Labor Department data released today. Economists expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from July’s 9.4 percent and job reductions to total 225,000.

“It’s good to see the rate of job losses slow down,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight. But “we’re still on track here to hit 10 percent [unemployment] before we’re done.”

The rise in the jobless rate was partly due to 73,000 people joining the civilian labor force and the government finding that the number of unemployed Americans jumped by nearly 500,000 to 14.9 million. Those figures are from a different survey than the report on total job cuts.