Job Losses Slowed Significantly in May

Washington, DC, June 5, 2009--Job losses slowed dramatically in May, according to the latest government reading on the battered labor market, even as the unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high.

Employers cut 345,000 jobs from their payrolls in the month, down from the revised decline of 504,000 jobs in April.

It was the fewest jobs lost in a month since last September.

Still, the unemployment rate rose to 9.4% from 8.9% in April. Economists expected unemployment would increase to 9.2%.

It was the highest unemployment rate since August of 1983.

There were also 9.1 million people who were working part-time jobs because they could not find full-time work or they had their hours cut back. This was also a record high.

When counting people who wanted full-time work who are working part-time, as well as some of the people who are not counted as unemployed because they had stopped looking for work, the so-called underemployment reading rose to a record level of 16.4%.