WASHINGTON — Unemployment rose to 6.1% in August, the highest in four years, as businesses cut 84,000 jobs, the Department of Labor reported today.
July's numbers represented a 0.4% increase over July and a 1.4% rise from August 2007. It was the eighth consecutive month of job losses.
The number of people employed unemployed rose by 592,000.
Wage growth also remained sluggish, Average hourly earnings grew 7 cents, or 0.04%. That compares to an increase of 6 cents in July.
As in July, employment increased in education, government health care and mining while it decreased in manufacturing, construction, and professional and business services. Construction job losses declined at a slower rate–14,000 in both July and August–compared to an average monthly loss of 45,000 during the first half of 2008.
The number of people who worked part time out of necessity–because they could not find full-time–remained unchanged at 5.7 million, and has grown by 1.2 million in the last year.
This was the second piece of bad news on the job front this week. On Thursday, the department reported that weekly jobless claims rose 15,000 to 444,000 last week.
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