Today's Job Report

Holy crap! Unemployment jumped to 7.6% last month, the worst since September 1992. Nonfarm payrolls plunged by 598,000. The economy has lost jobs for 13 straight months. Since the recession began, the economy has lost 3.6 million jobs--half of that came in the last three months of 2008. Here's a look at the unemployment rate since 1995: Here's another measure of employment, the number of employed as a percent of the total population. The traditional unemployment rate only counts folks "in the labor force" so if you're not looking for a job, you're not counted. Of course, people stop looking for jobs when there are no jobs so I really don't get that one. How's this for a scary number. If the employed/population rate was at the level it was in April 2000, there would be ne