Rise of unemployment in the United-States

On November 5th, La Tribune and Les Echos entitled with a spectacular rise of unemployment in the United-States. During October, the American economy has lost 415.000 jobs. A record since 1980, at the end of Jimmy Carter’s mandate. This result is all the more frightening as 230.000 have already been lost in September. As a consequence, unemployment in the United-States has increased by 0.5%, from 4.9% of the working population in September to 5.4% in October by coming back to the rate of five years ago. In the article "Forte hausse du chômage américain en octobre", Les Echos are noticing that services have been particularly hit. It is the case in hostelry, catering or even air transport which have recently announced redundancy measures”.

La Tribune is opening a file on "Le chômage fait un retour en force aux Etats-Unis" (unemployment returns in the United-States). The daily, on the basis of analysts’ reports, is noticing that the difficulties of the American economy should lead to the loss of two million jobs. Until now, one million jobs have already been lost. Analysts think that one million supplementary jobs could be lost, which would result in an increase of the American unemployment to around 6.5% in the middle of 2002. Of course, we can all worry about those prospects.