Job losses jump

Job losses and the unemployment rate are key signs of economic decline or recovery. There is mixed news on the employment front. Job losses jumped unexpectedly, but the rate of increase in the unemployment rate slowed:

The battered U.S. labor market took a step backwards last month as employers trimmed more jobs from their payrolls in June, according to a government report Thursday.

There was a net loss of 467,000 jobs in June, compared with a revised loss of 322,000 jobs in May. This was the first time in four months that the number of jobs lost rose from the prior month.

The June job losses were also far worse than the forecast of a loss of 365,000 jobs by economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

The unemployment rate rose for the ninth straight month, climbing to 9.5% from 9.4%, and hitting another 26-year high. Economists had been expecting that the unemployment rate would hit 9.6%.

Nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost during the first half of 2009, more than the 3.1 million lost in all of 2008.

Job losses since the recession began:

The unemployment rate over the past five years:

The reason they can disagree is because they are measured differently. The job loss number is probably more reliable than the unemployment rate.