NYT
The job market took a serious and unexpected turn for the worse in August, raising fears that the risks of a recession are greater than many economists had believed.
The economy shed 4,000 jobs between July and August, with industries that are connected to the housing market — like construction and manufacturing — making the deepest cuts, the Labor Department reported today. It was the first employment decline since 2003, when the job market was still struggling to emerge from a long slump in the wake of the 2001 recession.
The unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent in August, which economists said was likely a statistical fluke as more people stopped looking for work and were therefore not counted by the government as unemployed.
“If the economy is not headed toward recession, it is very close to one,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.
Stocks fell broadly and sharply, as investors digested the idea that the economy had been weakening significantly even before the mortgage crisis hit financial markets last month. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 13,113.38, down 249.97, or 1.9 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index and Nasdaq composite recorded comparable declines.........
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