More than Half a Million Jobs Lost in November, Most since 1974

San Jose, CA – On Friday, Dec. 5, the Department of Labor reported that 533,000 jobs were lost in November, the worst one-month decline since 1974. The job losses cut across the economy, with only health care showing any sizable increase in employment. In addition the report revised upward the job losses in September and October, showing that the economy has lost a total of almost 2 million jobs in 2008. The official unemployment rate increased two-tenths of one percent to 6.7%. This figure would have been much higher except for the fact that more than 400,000 people stopped looking for work and were not counted in the official unemployment report. A broader measure of unemployment that includes people working part-time but wanting full-time work, and those jobless who had given up looking for work, rose to 12.5%, or one out of every eight people in the labor force.