Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991                   TAG: 9103090195
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

UNEMPLOYMENT SURGES

The 0.3 percentage point rise in the civilian jobless rate, up from January's rate of 6.2 percent, was the largest one-month increase since 1986, the Labor Department said.

Since unemployment began climbing last June, when it was holding at a relatively low 5.3 percent, about 1.6 million Americans have been added to the ranks of the unemployed. In February alone, nearly a half million people lost their jobs and joined the unemployment line, the government said.

The bleak jobs report indicates that the economic slowdown continued, analysts said.

"As of February, the recession was continuing apace. The idea that the bell rang on it certainly doesn't apply," said Robert Dederick, chief economist at the Northern Trust Co. of Chicago.

"The weakness was not only considerable in magnitude, but it was very widespread," he said.

Payrolls fell by 185,000 in February, marking the seventh straight month that more industries lost jobs than added them, the Labor Department said. The job loss number can differ from the number of newly unemployed because the two figures are derived from different surveys.

It has been the worst stretch of layoffs since the 1981-82 recession. The overall 185,000-job loss in February from non-farm payrolls was far worse than the 100,000-decline most analysts had expected.

The bulk of last month's job losses came in manufacturing, where there has been a steady erosion for the past two years.

In February, factory payrolls fell by 127,000, bringing the total job loss in that sector to more than 1 million since January 1989, the Labor Department said.

But the job losses were widespread, hitting service industries as well.

"Consumers are coming back, cash registers are beginning to flow. A weak unemployment report doesn't change our forecast, which is for a recovery in the spring," said Jack Albertine, who heads an economic forecasting firm in Washington.

Service-producing industries lost about 86,000 jobs in February, including a 70,000-job loss in retail trade. In transportation, there was a 36,000 cutback, reflecting temporary layoffs and job terminations in the airline industry and continued declines in trucking, the Labor Department said.

Health services, which has been about the only industry continuing to grow in recent months, gained 30,000 jobs last month, a more modest increase than previous months.

In another sign of economic weakness, the average manufacturing work week fell in February, down to 40.2 hours per week, rather than the 40.4 hours per week recorded in January. Manufacturing overtime was also cut back, falling to 3.3 hours, down from the 3.4 hours recorded in January.

Total civilian employment was about unchanged at 116.9 million, the government said.

The jobless numbered 8.2 million, up 440,000 from the 7.7 million unemployed in January.

In a separate calculation of unemployment that counts members of the armed services stationed in the United States, the February jobless rate was 6.4 percent, up from January's 6.1 percent for that category but still better than the February civilian rate of 6.5 percent.