Job losses, unemployment mount in US, Europe unemployment

American employers cut 467,000 jobs from their payrolls in June, after cutting 322,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department reported. That made June the first month in four in which job losses rose from the previous month. Economists had expected 365,000 job losses. The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, rose to 9.5% from 9.4%, short of forecasts for an increase to 9.6%. The jobs report was kind of a rude awakening, prompting people to think that the stock market rally doesn't mean the US economy is coming back. What it could mean is that there is a lot more pain to be endured before there can be a recovery.

The Labor Department’s monthly snapshot of employment flew in the face of growing optimism of a recovery already taking root. The numbers intensified pressure on the Obama administration to show that the initiatives taken to lift the economic gloom are working. After an encouraging May report, some economists had expressed hopes that an economic recovery might finally be emerging. But the June report dented such hopes. The losses for June lifted net jobs shed since the beginning of the recession to 6.5mn - equal to the net job gain over the previous nine years.

The unemployment rate in the 16 eurozone climbed to a 10-year high of 9.5% in May as companies cut jobs to survive Europe's worst post-war recession, according to EU data. Some 273,000 jobs were lost across the eurozone in May as the unemployment rate rose to the highest point since May 1999, the European Union's Eurostat data agency estimated.