Job Losses Mount, Obama Demands Action

As expected, the U.S. job situation continues to deteriorate at a rapid pace. Data today from the government showed that the U.S. lost 598,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate rose from 7.2% to 7.6%. This now brings the job losses to 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007.

Job losses in January were large and widespread across the major industry sectors. Manufacturing employment fell by 207,000 over the month. Construction shed 111,000 jobs over the month. Job losses continued throughout most of the service-providing sector. Since the start of the recession, the service-providing sector has lost 1.8 million jobs, with over half of the decline occurring in the past 3 months.

Today, President Obama, introducing his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, highlighted the state of the economy and the job losses, saying "the situation could not be more serious" and it "requires immediate action". He said it is time for "Congress to act" in getting an economic stimulus bill put together.