. . . and unemployment can't be abolished until capitalism is abolished. >Jobless Rate Surges to 4-Year High > >By Caren Bohan > >WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate soared to a four-year high in August as companies hacked 113,000 workers from their payrolls, the government said on Friday in a startlingly bleak report on the economy. > >The jobless rate climbed to 4.9 percent from 4.5 percent in July, the Labor Department said. August's big drop in the number of workers on nonfarm payrolls followed a revised payrolls gain of 13,000 in July that was originally reported as a loss of 42,000 jobs. > >Job losses in August were especially steep in the beleaguered manufacturing sector, which has shed more than a million positions since the middle of last year. > >A big worry among economists was that the higher jobless rate might deal a crushing blow to consumers, whose spending has held up an otherwise fragile economy. > >``It builds the story toward a recession,'' said Mike Niemira, economist at Bank of Tokyo/Mitsubishi in New York. ``I think we are in a recession.'' > Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
