JOBLESS RATE WORST IN 5 YEARS

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

DATE: SATURDAY, January 11, 1992                   TAG: 9201110305
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
JOBLESS RATE WORST IN 5 YEARS
The nation's unemployment rate climbed to a five-and-a-half-year high of 7.1 percent in December, with the bulk of the rise occurring among people discharged from their latest job with little prospect of recall, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Long-term unemployment also rose substantially as the ranks of those out of work swelled by 289,000, to 8.9 million, the highest in nearly eight years.
As discouraging as much of the Fed chairman won't promise further action. A8 report was, however, many private analysts said it did not point to significant fresh deterioration in the economy last month but mainly reflected a continued lack of growth.
"What it tells you is that the economy is stagnant," said Neal M. Soss, chief economist for First Boston Corp. "There's no sense of improvement."
One relative bright spot in the report was a modest but unexpected rise in payrolls, which grew 31,000; analyst had expected payrolls to shrink by more than twice that amount. All of the gain, however, was in government rather than private payrolls, which would more accurately reflect economic conditions.
Other pluses were a slight increase in the length of the average work week, an increase in the proportion of industries adding workers rather than shedding them and a rise in the index of production working hours.
President Bush, returning from his business-oriented trip to the Far East, called the December results disappointing, and congressional Democrats pounced on the report to assert administration mismanagement.
"It is alarming that joblessness is still rising so sharply in the second year of this Republican recession," said House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo. "The surge in unemployment shows why the president cannot pose for photo opportunities with the Japanese and cut the capital gains tax for the rich if he wants to get the economy moving again. We need a far-reaching program to revive the economy and help middle-income Americans."
From the Senate, Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, said, "Not only is this 19-month long recession the most prolonged since the Second World War, it's becoming one of the most painful for working, middle-income people."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB