As per the Labhor Department data released yesterday 6,51,000 jobs lost in February pushing unemployment rate in the US to 8.1% from 7.6 percent in January.

This is the highest jobless rate since late 1983. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 44 lakh jobs and half of which occurred in the past four months.

A total of 1.25 crore people are now unemployed in the US, almost 4% of the entire population.

President Obama said that the number of jobs lost so far in the recession was "astounding".

Economists warn that labor market's pain is likely to continue till 2010. Economists at Goldman Sachs said they expect the headline unemployment rate to continue to rise to 9.5 percent by the end of this year and then go to 10 percent by the end of 2010.

"We will continue to do whatever is necessary to break the destructive cycle of job loss in this country and put Americans back to work," Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a statement.