Another ugly jobs report expected
The Department of Labor is expected to report another staggering loss of jobs in March, capping off a week of dour reports.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- At the end of an already ugly week for jobs, the Labor Department is expected to report Friday that the economy shed another 658,000 jobs in March and the nation's unemployment rate will rise to 8.5%.
Those figures, which reflect a consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com, would suggest the U.S. economy's hemorrhaging of jobs is far from over.
On Wednesday, payroll-processing firm Automatic Data Processing reported that the private sector eliminated 742,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis in March. That was up 36,000 from last month's revised figure of 706,000.
On Thursday, the Labor Department reported a total of 669,000 people filed initial jobless claims in the week ended March 28, up 12,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised figure of 657,000..
It was the largest weekly increase since October 1982, and it surprised economists surveyed by Briefing.com, who had forecast initial claims to decline to 650,000.
The number of people continuing to file for jobless benefits rose 161,000 to 5.7 million in the week ended March 21, the latest week for which data was available. It was the highest number since the government began keeping records in 1967, and the 10th consecutive week that continuing claims rose to a record high.
The increasing number of people continuing to file for unemployment benefits suggests that Americans are struggling to re-enter the workforce.
The 4-week moving average for weekly filings, which smoothes out volatile peaks and troughs, was 656,750, up 6,500 from the previous week's revised average.
Earlier this month, initial claims and the 4-week moving average had declined slightly, raising some hopes that the labor market was stabilizing. Given last week's increase, however, that seems improbable, according to Andrew Gledhill, an economists at Moody's Economy.com.
"This increase is definitely bad news," Gledhill said. "This is the worst labor market downturn at least since the 1980s, and I don't expect it to subside soon," he said. 
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