MW: Unemployment rate leaps to 14-year high of 6.5%
By Rex Nutting
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to a 14-year high of 6.5% in October as nearly a quarter million jobs were lost, the Labor Department reported Friday. U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell by 240,000 in October following a revised decline of 284,000 in September, which was the largest job loss in seven years. So far in 2008, a total of 1.18 million jobs have been lost, with 651,000 coming in just the past three months. The October employment report was much worse than expected. Economists thought the jobless rate would rise to 6.3% from 6.1% in September, and expected job losses of around 210,000 in October.
