Recession Jobs Losses Top 5 Million

--Labor market shed anotehr 653k jobs n March. --January jobs losses was revised upward from 655k to 741k --jobs losses occured across the board, even government sector shed 5k jobs --unemployment rate rose from 8.1% to 8.5%; but broade unemployment rate rose to 15.6% By BRIAN BLACKSTONE WASHINGTON -- The U.S. continued to shed jobs at an unrelenting clip in March, pushing total losses since the recession started 16 months ago past five million. More Real Time Econ: Broader Jobless Rate Hits 15.6% Mean Street: Jobs Will Only Get WorseReal Time Economics: Can Green Jobs Save Economy?Fallback Jobs Dry UpSome Employers See Hiring OpportunityDiscuss: How secure is your job?The figures, which included another sharp rise in the unemployment rate to a 25-year high, are a sober reality check on the economy after some mildly encouraging news on housing, automobiles and manufacturing. The risk is that if job losses continue at their recent pace, nervous consumers will be less likely to commit to the types of big-ticket items that usually propel recoveries, stamping out a recovery before it takes hold. Nonfarm payrolls plunged 663,000 in March, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday, largely matching Wall Street expectations, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey. However, January was revised to show a steeper loss of 741,000. January's decline is the third-largest on record. However, the other two -- a 834,000 decline in 1949 and a nearly two million plunge in 1945 -- were driven by one-time events including a large coal and steel strike and by the end of World War II. The economy has shed 5.1 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007, with over two million of those losses occurring in the last three months alone. "These declines have been widespread across industry sectors, but particularly sharp in manufacturing, construction, and temporary help services," said Keith Hall, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Layoffs announcements continued last month across sectors including: United Technologies Corp.; General Dynamics Corp.; National Semiconductor Corp.; and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The unemployment rate, which is calculated using a survey of households as opposed to companies, jumped 0.4 percentage point to 8.5%, the highest since November 1983. In its latest report on the U.S. economy, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said it expects the jobless rate to reach 10.5% by the end of next year. By broader measures, the labor market is already there, and then some. When marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers are included, the rate of unemployed or underemployed workers hit 15.6% last month, up from 14.8% in February and more than six percentage points higher than it was one year ago. Average hourly earnings increased a modest $0.03, or 0.2%, to $18.50. That was up just 3.4% from one year ago, a sign that inflation isn't a threat. To be sure, the severe first-quarter payroll drop doesn't mean the economy can't find its footing later this year, since employment has lagged the last couple of recoveries. Indeed, consumer spending -- which accounts for about 70% of gross domestic product -- likely expanded last quarter despite the loss of two-million-plus jobs. But if that pace doesn't decelerate noticeably by the middle of the year, then hopes for even a modest recovery this year would increasingly look out of reach. According to Friday's report, hiring last month in goods-producing industries fell by 305,000. Within this group, manufacturing firms cut 161,000 jobs, bringing the total since the recession began to 1.5 million. Construction employment was down 126,000 last month. Service-sector employment plunged 358,000. Business and professional services companies shed 133,000 jobs, the fifth-straight six-figure loss, and financial-sector payrolls were down 43,000. Retail trade cut 47,800 jobs, while leisure and hospitality businesses shed 40,000 as households cut back on discretionary spending. Temporary employment, a leading indicator of future job prospects, fell by more than 70,000. As has been the case throughout much of the recession, the sole bright spot among private sector industries was health care, which tends to be more labor intensive than manufacturing and other services. Health care payrolls rose 13,500. The government shed 5,000 jobs last month due to cutbacks in state and local payrolls. The average workweek slid 0.1 percentage point to 33.2 hours. A separate index of aggregate weekly hours fell one percentage point to 100.9. Write to Brian Blackstone at brian.blackstone@dowjones.com