NEW YORK — The country's employment picture darkened further last month as employers trimmed their payrolls for the seventh straight month and the unemployment rate climbed to 5.7%, its highest level in more than four years, according to government data released Friday.
On the upside, the net loss of 51,000 jobs in July was smaller than the 75,000-job decline predicted on average by economists, and the Labor Department reported that employment shrank less in May and June than previously estimated.
The monthly job losses this year have been far short of the levels typically seen during troubled times, suggesting to some experts that the current downturn, brought on by the housing crisis and a surge in energy prices, could be shallow.
However, the job cuts show no sign of letting up and are spreading from long-suffering sectors such as manufacturing to the all-important service sector.
Seven consecutive monthly declines in employment suggest an economy "pretty darn close to a recession," said Robert MacIntosh, chief economist at money management firm Eaton Vance Corp. "I know they're not huge but they are losses, and they're symptomatic of what's happening out there."
There also are indications that the employment picture is bleaker than that cast by the official numbers.
July's cuts, for example, would have been worse without the net addition of 25,000 government positions. And just 41.2% of the industries surveyed by the government reported increases in payrolls in July, the lowest percentage this year, according to Goldman, Sachs & Co.
"Even though the job market is not showing a faster rate of decline, there is little job growth anywhere," said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank in New York.
The job report and a massive quarterly loss at General Motors Corp. weighed on the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 51.70 points, or 0.5%, to 11,326.32.
The rise in the unemployment rate from 5.5% in June put the indicator at its highest level since March 2004.
Employers have eliminated a net 463,000 positions this year. That includes 98,000 jobs cut in May and June, fewer than the 124,000 that the government previously reported.
Even if people keep their jobs, the data show that many Americans can't get the pay and hours they are seeking.
