WASHINGTON — As the presidential election season nears its climax, there is growing evidence that the country is slipping into the deepest recession in decades.
The latest marker came Friday, when the government reported that employers shed 159,000 jobs in September, far more than expected. That was the worst one-month drop in more than five years and brings to 760,000 the number of jobs that have disappeared this year.
Economists say the accelerating pace of job losses, combined with the most severe credit crisis since the Great Depression, make it increasingly likely that the government bureau that determines business cycles will eventually stamp "recession" on this one.
"This should remove any lingering doubts that the economy is in a recession," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "The rate of job loss is accelerating and the unemployment rate is virtually certain to cross 7% early in 2009."
Perhaps most telling was the reaction of Edward Leamer, director of the respected UCLA Anderson Forecast, who has repeatedly predicted that the country will narrowly skirt recession. He called the payroll decline "the first number that is really bothersome to me" and added, "August was probably the first recession month."
August was when the unemployment rate jumped from 5.7% to 6.1%. That rate, calculated using a survey different from the one used to determine job losses, was unchanged at 6.1% in September. Economists took little comfort in that, however, pointing out that the unemployment rate doesn't count people who have given up looking for work, nor those who have had to settle for part-time work.
"Factoring in discouraged workers, unemployment is closer to 7.9%," said University of Maryland economist Peter Morici.
LeAndrae Coates, a 37-year-old former optician, is trying to stay out of the ranks of the discouraged.
On Friday, he was working the computer job banks at an employment center in Lincoln Heights run by the Arbor Education and Training group. For the last six months, he's been going to the job center four days a week, and he sends out about 10 job applications a week. In that time, he's gotten only one in-person interview.
Coates said hiring managers have told him that they're accepting only part-time workers because they can't afford to pay full time. He now regrets leaving a part-time job as an optician for an eyeglass company in search of full-time work.
