By Shobhana Chandra and Bob Willis Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- More Americans are collecting jobless benefits than at any time in the last 26 years, a sign the labor market is weakening as the recession worsens. A larger-than-anticipated 4.09 million fired workers received government unemployment checks in the week ended Nov. 22, the most since December 1982, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Initial jobless claims declined by 21,000 to 509,000 in the week that ended Nov. 29, which included the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Factories, banks and retailers may step up firings as sales weaken, prompting even bigger declines in consumer spending and pushing the U.S. into what may become the longest recession in the postwar era. A Labor report tomorrow may show job losses swelled in November to the highest level in a quarter century and the unemployment rate climbed. ``The labor market is eroding quickly,'' Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the report. ``It just adds to the litany of problems facing the consumer. The economy will stay in this recession through the first half of 2009.'' Continuing claims were projected to rise to 4.03 million, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Labor revised total benefit rolls for the prior week up to 3.998 million from 3.962 million. Initial claims last week were lower than the 540,000 median estimate of economists surveyed. The government often has difficulty adjusting the figures for seasonal influences during holidays. The four-week moving average of initial claims, a less volatile measure, climbed to 524,500, the highest since 1982, from 518,250, today's report showed. Jobless Rate Rises The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits, which tends to track the jobless rate, increased to 3.1 percent, the highest since 1992, from 3 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag. Forty-nine states and territories reported an increase in new claims, while 4 reported a decrease. The biggest increases were reported by California, Ohio and Michigan. Claims reflect weekly firings and tend to rise as job growth -- measured by the monthly non-farm payrolls report -- slows. So far this year, weekly claims have averaged 408,500, compared with an average of 321,000 for all of 2007, when employers added a total of 1.1 million jobs. The economy has lost 1.2 million jobs so far this year as payrolls dropped for 10 consecutive months. The jobs report, due from Labor tomorrow, may show payrolls fell by 330,000 in November, the biggest one-month drop since 1982, according to the Bloomberg survey. The unemployment rate probably rose to 6.8 percent, the highest since 1993. Longer Slump Rising unemployment and the persistent credit crisis raise the likelihood the recession that began in December 2007 will turn into the longest slump in the post-World War II era. What started as a housing slump, has spread to manufacturing and services. The Institute for Supply Management's factory index dropped last month to the lowest level since 1982, and its services gauge, which accounts for almost 90 percent of the economy, fell to the lowest level since records began in 1997. Financial firms at among those making the biggest job cuts. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. bank by assets, said this week it will cut 9,200 jobs nationwide at Washington Mutual Inc. as it acquires the Seattle-based lender. ``We have seen a fairly significant dropoff in demand, starting in October,'' Delta Airlines Inc. President Ed Bastian said on a Webcast of a Credit Suisse Group AG airline conference in New York this week. ``The revenue environment is as cloudy as it's ever been. We've never seen the level of demand destruction that some are forecasting for our business.'' Delta, the world's largest carrier, said it will cut seating capacity by as much as 8 percent in 2009 and eliminate an unspecified number of jobs. To contact the reporter on this story: Shobhana Chandra in Washington schandra1@bloomberg.net; Bob Willis in Washington at bwillis@bloomberg.net

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