WASHINGTON, July 3 - The U.S. unemployment rate shot up in June to a fresh 9-year high while the economy lost 30,000 jobs, the government said on Thursday in an unexpectedly gloomy report on the labor market. The jobless rate climbed to 6.4 percent last month from May's 6.1 percent, the Labor Department said, a much worse reading than the 6.2 percent forecast by U.S. economists in a survey. The rate reached the highest level since a matching 6.4 percent in April 1994.
The key data may call into question hopes that have been building in the stock market that the U.S. economy is set for a rebound. Worried about the lackluster state of the economy, the Federal Reserve last week cut short-term interest rates to 1 percent. Rather than falling, economists had expected payrolls to remain unchanged in the latest month. In a revision that underscored the weakness in the job market, Labor said payrolls fell 70,000 in May instead of the originally reported 17,000 drop. Among the sectors that contributed to the jobs decline were manufacturing, which fell 56,000, and information industries, which shed 10,000 jobs. Across the economy, the length of the average workweek was unchanged at 33.7 hours. Factory hours were also steady at 40.2 hours, while overtime remained at 4 hours. Lack of growth in the workweek is a less-than-encouraging sign for the future. When companies are poised to begin hiring, they often increase the hours of the workers currently on their staff first.///