Unemployment rate surges to 7.6 percent

The hits just keep on coming on the jobs front...

The Labor Department this morning reported that the nation lost another 598,000 payroll jobs in January.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, jumped to 7.6 percent from 7.2 percent in December. That's the highest unemployment rate since late 1992.

The December job loss number was worse than consensus expectations. And revisions to previous months darkened the picture even more.

The estimate of U.S. job losses during 2008 was revised from 2.6 million to 3 million. The U.S. economy has lost 3.6 million payroll jobs since the recession started in December 2007, with roughly half of those losses in just the past three months.

And the labor market is expected to get worse before it gets better.

The jobs report comes as the Senate pushes toward a vote on a roughly $900 billion stimulus package to jumpstart the economy, which contracted at a 3.8 percent annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2008. Some economists are already warning that economic shrinkage this quarter could be worse than last quarter.

On Monday, the Obama administration is expected to unveiled its plan to deal with toxic assets that have crippled the financial system.

It's shaping up as a long, harsh stretch on the economic front. Cover your assets, folks.