December 2008 Employment Situation — 2009-01-09

Nonfarm payroll employment declined sharply in December, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.8 to 7.2 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll employment fell by 524,000 over the month and by 1.9 million over the last 4 months of 2008. In December, job losses were large and widespread across most major industry sectors. In December, the number of unemployed persons increased by 632,000 to 11.1 mil- lion and the unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent. Since the start of the reces- sion in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has grown by 3.6 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 2.3 percentage points. (See table A-1.) The unemployment rates for adult men (7.2 percent), adult women (5.9 percent), and whites (6.6 percent) increased in December. The jobless rates for teenagers (20.8 percent), blacks (11.9 percent), and Hispanics (9.2 percent) were little changed over the month.