US unemployment rises

According to the latest figures released by the US Labour Department, 240,000 jobs were lost last month, which is the tenth consecutive month that the US labour market has suffered.

The jobless rate now stands at 6.5 percent which is the highest rate in 14 years with 1.2 million jobs lost in 2008, although this is still within economist estimates of 8 percent.

The state of the labour market is currently deteriorating faster, as it was predicted that 159,000 jobs would have been lost in September but the true figure is nearly double that.

In the last ten months alone, 1.2 million people have lost their jobs and with 284,000 jobs lost in September, the labour market is gaining negative momentum.

The downturn in the economy has meant that cuts are being made and the workforce being trimmed across all the main industry sectors.

In the last week of October alone, 481,000 people applied for jobless claims.

The car giant Ford has revealed that job losses will be more widespread than predicted, as in the third quarter the company made losses to the tune of $2.98bn meaning that their workforce will be cut by a further 10 percent at the start of the new year.

To put the current situation into context, during the 1980 recession the unemployment rate peaked at 10.8 percent before coming down, so the historical precedent is that things are going to get worse before they get better.

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