December job losses top 524,000; worst since 1945

Ending a terrible year on a sour note, nonfarm payrolls shed 524,000 jobs last month, making 2008 the worst year for job losses since 1945, according to a report by the Department of Labor. The number of unemployed people in the United States rose to 11.1 million in December, raising the unemployment rate to 7.2% from a revised 6.8% in November, reaching its highest level since January 1993. The economy lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, including 1.9 million jobs that disappeared during the last four months of the year. The decline was smaller than the 584,000 jobs that were lost in November, a revision from the originally reported 533,000 job losses. The October job-loss figure also was revised upward, to 423,000, reflecting an additional loss of 103,000 jobs. Last year’s job losses were just shy of the 2.75 million jobs that were eliminated in 1945, as World War II was ending. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com Inc. of Chicago were expecting the December unemployment rate to come in at 7%. “The [unemployment] numbers clearly indicate that the economy hasn’t hit bottom and that makes a fiscal stimulus package so important,” said Douglas Roberts, founder and chief investment strategist of Channel Capital Research Institute LLC of Shrewsbury, N.J. “People are looking at what the future will bring, and it really depends on government action.”