Unemployment Hits 9.7%, but Job Losses Are Slowing

The US lost 216,000 jobs last month, driving unemployment to 9.7%, its highest level since 1983, the Wall Street Journal reports. The silver lining is that job losses have slowed; payrolls dropped a revised 276,000 in July, and earlier months saw losses of as many as 700,000 jobs. “The labor market’s healing process is agonizingly slow,” one economist tells Bloomberg. Individuals will “be contending with a weak labor market for some time.” (More economic indicators stories.)