Jobless spike deepens economic pain
A spike in the unemployment rate - the biggest in more than two decades - raised new concerns Friday that a weak labor outlook, high oil prices and continuing woes in the housing and credit markets are leading the U.S. economy into a painful recession. The government said Friday that the unemployment rate soared to 5.5% in May from 5% in April - much higher than economists had forecast. The surge marked the biggest one-month jump in unemployment since February 1986, and the 5.5% rate is the highest level seen since October 2004. Unemployment is now a full percentage point higher than it was a year ago. "You're not going to have a lot of people arguing 'no recession' with this data," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute.
See "Jobless spike deepens economic pain", Chris Isidore, CNN Money, June 5, 2008