U.S. Economy Sheds 240,000 Jobs

The U.S. economy shed 240,000 jobs last month, worse than economists had expected and marking the tenth straight month of declines, according to the latest Labor Department data.

The consensus analyst estimate was for a loss of 200,000 jobs. The unemployment rate increased to 6.5% from 6.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The economy has shed 1.2 million jobs in the first 10 months of 2008, more than half of which have disappeared over the past three months.

Additionally, the numbers for August and September were revised sharply downward. For those two months combined, the government now says an additional 179,000 workers lost their jobs than had been previously reported.

The manufacturing, construction and several service-producing industries led the October job losses. Health care and mining were a few of the sectors adding jobs.

The employment situation continues to deteriorate amid the economic downturn. Ford (F Quote) on Friday said it will further reduce its U.S. hourly employees by about 2,600 under its most recent round of targeted buyouts, bringing its total U.S. hourly reductions through buyouts in 2008 to about 7,000.

Wall Street banks Goldman Sachs (GS Quote) and Citigroup (C Quote) began previously announced layoffs earlier this week.

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