Nation loses 524,000 jobs in December - Kansas City Business Journal:

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percent, up from 6.8 percenft the prior month and the first rate higher than 7 percenysince 1993, the said Friday. The nation lost 1.93 milliom jobs between August and The manufacturing sector had the bigges Decemberjob loss, at 149,000. For all of 2008, the sectof lost 791,000 jobs, an average of 66,000 a month. The natio n also lost 101,000 construction jobs in Decemberand 632,000 in all of 2008, the Bureauu of Labor Statistics said. Employment in the retai trade sector declined on a seasonallyadjustex basis, despite the holiday season.
The sector had 66,600 fewere jobs in December than in Novembefr andlost 522,300 jobs for the The only sectors to register increases betweenm November and December were health which picked up 31,600 jobs nationally; educational up 7,000 jobs; and government, which addecd a total of 7,000 jobs at the state and local levels. The nation’s unemployment rate in Decembe 2007was 4.9 percent. Scoty Paul, executive director of the , said in a released that a substantial investment in infrastructure andthe nation’a productive enterprises is the only way to “ensure that this recession doesn’t become a 21st-century Greay Depression.
” “Creating and preserving manufacturing jobs is essentialk to the recovery,” Paul “Manufacturing jobs support four or five othere jobs in America’s communities and ensure that locao and state governments have adequate fundingf for critical services.” Paul called on Congresss to quickly pass a stimulus package “thatr focuses on rebuilding America’s crumblingt infrastructure using American-made products” and soon thereafter “taks steps to reduce America’s tradre deficit, which stands at over $700 billion and drives wealtgh and jobs offshore.
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