Nation’s jobless rate hits 5 percent

updated 3:21 p.m. ET Jan. 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - Hiring practically stalled in December, driving the nation’s unemployment rate up to a two-year high of 5 percent and fanning fears of a recession.

Employers last month added the fewest new jobs to their payrolls in more than four years, according to the employment report released Friday by the Labor Department. The report showed that employment conditions are deteriorating, strained by a housing slump and credit crunch that are sapping economic strength.

“The economy is getting hit by some body blows. The big question is whether the economy can withstand it or will it take a fall,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

The unemployment rate jumped from 4.7 percent in November to 5 percent in December, the highest since November 2005 after the Gulf Coast hurricanes dealt the country a mighty blow. Total payrolls — both private employers and government — grew by just 18,000 last month, the worst showing since August 2003, when the economy suffered job losses as it struggled to recover from the 2001 recession.

On Wall Street, the stocks tumbled on the news.

With the odds of a recession increasing, President Bush is exploring a package to stimulate the economy. The president, who has been coping with low marks for his handling of the economy, isn’t expected to make any decisions until later this month; He delivers his State of the Union address to the country on Jan. 28.

After meeting with his economic advisers Friday, Bush said the “financial markets are strong and solid.”

As part of its recently launched effort to make credit more readily available, the Federal Reserve announced that it will provide banks an additional $60 billion worth of loans through two auctions on Jan. 14 and Jan. 28. The Fed’s first two auctions offered banks a total of $40 billion in loans.

The December employment picture was much weaker than economists were expecting. They were forecasting the unemployment rate to bump up to 4.8 percent and for employers to add around 70,000 jobs to their payrolls.

Employers have grown cautious as they try to cope with fallout from housing and credit problems and rising uncertainty about how the economy will fare in the months ahead. Galloping energy prices and bad weather in some parts of the country also probably figured into the weak job figures.

Manufacturers, construction companies, financial services all cut jobs in December — casualties of the housing slump. Retailers also sliced jobs.

The government added 31,000 jobs in December, while private employers actually cut payrolls by 13,000, underscoring the weakness.

For all of 2007, the economy added 1.33 million jobs and the unemployment rate averaged 4.6 percent, the same as in 2006. Employment growth averaged 111,000 a month in 2007, down from 189,000 a month in 2006.

The 5 percent rate for December is relatively low by historical standards. In the recession of the early 1980s, for example, the jobless rate reached double-digit levels.

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