Unemployment, Economic Crisis | featured news

Nine states are considering rejecting federal stimulus money meant to extend unemployment benefits.

Claims for unemployment insurance jump, those living on unemployment benefits hits record high.

Almost 5 million Americans continued to draw jobless benefits late last month, and new requests again exceeded 600,00 as companies lay off scores of workers.

U.S. employers slashed 598,000 jobs in January, the deepest cut in payrolls in 34 years as the national unemployment rate shot up to 7.6 percent, according to a Labor Department report on Friday that underlined a deepening recession.

Up to 51 million jobs worldwide could disappear by the end of this year as a result of the economic slowdown that has turned into a global employment crisis, a United Nations agency said on Wednesday.

A man shot and killed his wife and five young children before taking his own life Tuesday, possibly out of despair from losing a job, the authorities said.