Remember Those 533,000 Jobs Lost Last Month?

A mere drop in the bucket. The new month's numbers are out.

Initial Unemployment Claims Increases Sharply to 573 Thousand: The Labor Department reports this morning show new claims for unemployment benefits hit 573,000 last week, the highest level in 26 years. The number of people continuing to claim jobless benefits also “jumped much more than expected, increasing by 338,000 to 4.4 million. Economists expected a small increase to 4.1 million. … The increase in continuing claims was the largest jump since November 1974.”

by CalculatedRisk on 12/11/2008 08:38:00 AM

The DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims:

In the week ending Dec. 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 573,000, an increase of 58,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 515,000. The 4-week moving average was 540,500, an increase of 14,250 from the previous week's revised average of 526,250.
...
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Nov. 29 was 4,429,000, an increase of 338,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,091,000.

The current recession is already worse than the '01 recession, but still not as bad as the '90/'91 recession (weekly claims) - although continued claims are at the same level as the '90/'91 recession.

Ooops...That CAN'T be good.

A half-million jobs this month, a half-million last month, another half-million next months (and so on), and purdee soon, it's gonna get tough finding gainful employment, innit?