Nonfarm business payrolls declined by 93,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The cut, the steepest in five months, brought total job losses since the start of the year to 431,000.
....The sharp decline in payrolls was a surprise. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC had forecast a gain of 12,000 jobs.
....August's job cuts were broad based and remained heavy in manufacturing, a sector that suffered the brunt of the economic downturn. Manufacturers shed 44,000 jobs last month, raising the total of jobs lost in the sector to about 2.7 million over the last three years.
....The service sector cut 67,000 jobs, including 4,000 in retail trade. The professional and business-services industries cut 28,000 jobs, marking the first decline in five months.
....Nevertheless, Treasury Secretary John Snow....said the economy has "turned a corner" ....
WaPo;
The vast majority of the 2.7 million job losses since the 2001 recession began were the result of permanent changes in the U.S. economy and are not coming back, which means the labor market will not regain strength until new positions are created in novel and dynamic economic sectors, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York study has concluded.
I'll have more on why I agree with that later...
