Job Losses: The Worst in Two Decades

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. job market suffered its heaviest blow in more than two decades in October, shedding a staggering 415,000 jobs as the full impact of the devastating Sept. 11 attacks struck an economy already in the early stages of recession, a government report Friday showed. The Labor Department said the national unemployment rate soared half a percentage point to 5.4 percent last month from 4.9 percent in September -- the highest in nearly five years since a matching 5.4 percent rate in December 1996.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2001