The recovery has been indefinitely delayed - layoffs on the other hand, haven't

"There isn't the underlying fuel there for strong consumer spending growth," Gault said.

The construction industry lost 65,000 jobs, which caused some economists to note that the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus package hasn't yet stemmed layoffs in that industry.

"It doesn't look like a whole lot of those 'shovel ready' projects have been started," Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, wrote in a note to clients.

clipped from finance.yahoo.com WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate jumped almost half a point to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since 1983, reflecting a poor job market that will make it hard for the economy to begin a sustained recovery. While the jobless rate rose more than expected, the economy shed a net total of 216,000 jobs, less than July's revised 276,000 and the fewest monthly losses in a year, according to Labor Department data released Friday. Economists expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from July's 9.4 percent and job reductions to total 225,000. By contrast, in a healthy economy, employers need to add a net total of around 125,000 jobs a month just to keep the unemployment rate stable. "It's good to see the rate of job losses slow down," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight. But "we're still on track here to hit 10 percent (unemployment) before we're done."