The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs amid a deepening recession.
Both figures were worse than analysts expected and the Labor Department's report shows America's workers being clobbered by a wave of layoffs unlikely to ease in the coming months.
"There is no light at the end of the tunnel with these numbers," said Nigel Gault, economist at IHS Global Insight. "Job losses were everywhere and there's no hope for a turnaround any time soon."
February's net job loss came after even deeper payroll reductions in the prior two months, according to revised figures released Friday. The economy lost 681,000 jobs in December and another 655,000 in January.
Employers are shrinking their work forces and turning to other ways to slash costs - including trimming workers' hours, freezing wages or cutting pay - because the recession has eaten into their sales and profits. Customers at home and abroad are cutting back as other countries cope with their own economic problems.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs, more than half of which occurred in the past four months.
New York's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 7 percent in January, up from 4.7 percent a year earlier.
The state Labor Department previously reported that the unemployment rate in December 2008 was 7 percent, but end-of-year revisions dropped it to 6.6 percent.
January's rate in New York City was 7.3 percent - a slight increase from 7.2 the previous month and up from 5.3 in January 2008. The highest rate - 11.7 percent - was in Lewis County.
Tompkins County had the lowest rate, at 5.6 percent, an increase from 4 percent in January 2008.
