Economy Loses More Jobs than Expected in June

The U.S. Department of Labor said that 62,000 non-farm jobs were lost in America in June, higher than the 45,000 loss expected by economists polled by MarketWatch. It is the sixth straight month of job losses, according to the official government numbers.

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) held the unemployment rate steady at 5.5 percent after it had jumped from 5 percent in April to 5.5 percent in May. Analysts had been expecting the unemployment rate to ease to 5.4 percent in June. The unemployment rate was 4.6 percent in June 2007.

In the first six months of 2008, the American economy has lost a total of 438,000 jobs, an average of 73,000 a month.

Labor also revised the numbers from April and May to reflect an additional combined loss of 52,000 jobs over those two months.

The construction, manufacturing, and professional and business services sectors all suffered significant job losses in June. Professional and business services jobs fell by 59,000 in the month, led by a 30,000 job drop in temporary services jobs.

Mining, food service, health care and government employment increased in June. BLS noted that two-thirds of the gain in government employment was attributed to local government hiring.

The Labor report corresponds to a report earlier in the week from employment services firm ADP which said that the private sector had lost 79,000 jobs in June. In that report, ADP reported that 3,000 jobs were lost in the service sector, the first drop in employment in that sector since November 2002.