US lost 663,000 jobs in March, unemployment 8.5 per cent - Summary

Washington - The United States shed 663,000 jobs in March, lifting the unemployment rate to 8.5 per cent, its highest level in more than a quarter-century as the country battles one of its deepest and longest recessions in a generation, the US Labour Department said Friday. More than 5 million jobs have now been cut since a recession began in the United States in December 2007, the sharpest drop since the Second World War. Nearly two-thirds of those jobs were lost in just the last five months.