Non Farm Payroll - Aug 2008

Nonfarm payroll (NFP) employment continued its downtrend in July with U.S. employers shaving 51,000 jobs, marking the first time since May 2002 that the economy lost jobs for seven consecutive months. The Labor Department also reported last month that the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent—its highest level in more than four years—erasing all job gains made over the last year. Revisions to May and June's payrolls showed a total of 26,000 fewer jobs were lost than previously expected, bringing the number of jobs lost so far in 2008 to 463,000.