----- Original Message ----- From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2001 5:51 AM Subject: [downwithcapitalism] FW: U.S. Recession New York Times. 7 April 2001. Job Loss in March Biggest in 9 Years. Excerpts. The nation's employers shed 86,000 jobs in March, the largest loss for a single month in more than nine years and an indication to many economists that the United States may be on the verge of a recession. The unemployment rate took another tick upward, to 4.3 percent from 4.2 percent in February and 3.9 percent in October, as the Labor Department's job figures, announced yesterday, finally reflected the parade of layoffs and hiring freezes since last fall. Job losses in March, as they have been for months, were concentrated in manufacturing. But this time, job gains elsewhere were no longer sufficient to offset the cutbacks. ... The March loss was the largest since November 1991, when a still weak economy was emerging from the last recession and employers eliminated 129,000 jobs. A Labor Department survey of 356 industries last month showed that an increasingly broad array is cutting jobs. Not since the last recession have the cutbacks been so widespread. Stock prices, in reaction, fell sharply yesterday, with the Dow Jones industrial average declining 1.3 percent, to 9,791,09, and the Nasdaq falling 3.6 percent, to 1,720.36. ... The biggest job losses were in manufacturing, which shed 81,000 workers last month and 451,000 since last June. The other sector hard hit was temporary help, which lost 83,000 jobs and 300,000 since last spring, when the economy first showed signs of slowing. These are the "temps" that employers have increasingly used. When the cutbacks began, there were 3.5 million in the work force, many of them assigned to factory work. "Temps are the first to go in a slowing economy," said Thomas Nardone, chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the employment reports. ... Beyond the overall job loss, there were other indications in the March report that a slowing economy was approaching a recession. Job growth has steadily declined, from an average of 244,000 a month in last year's first quarter to 70,000 in the fourth quarter and 64,000 in the just-ended first quarter. Among the unemployed, the share of those laid off versus those who resign has risen gradually, to 48.8 percent, and the share of those unemployed for more than five weeks has also risen. Blacks are suffering the most from rising unemployment. Their unemployment rate was 8.6 percent in March and averaged 8.1 percent in the first quarter, up from 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter. PLEASE DISREGARD ANY SPAM THAT MAY FOLLOW THIS LINE Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
